WLSSD Encourages Residents to Add Leaves to Their Compost Pile

DULUTH, Minn.–The leaves are beginning to change colors, which means pretty soon trees will be bare and the ground will be covered with leaves, but here’s some good you can do with your leaf piles.

Through the early days of this fall season, you can bring bags of leaves or yard waste to the Western Lake Superior Sanitary District (WLSSD), where they make garden green compost. The compost is a good source of natural nutrients for your plants, grass and trees, and helps reduce the amount of chemical fertilizers in your soil.

Environmental Program Coordinator, Lorilee Blais, said, “It’s a source of nutrients and we don’t want it going to the landfill where it’s just going to be back in circulation so bring them here and we’re going to make compost with them. We make garden green compost year round and so the leaves that we get from the community residents are vital to making that compost”.

Pro tip for gardeners, the WLSSD suggests that mixing compost in your soil during the fall, helps prepare your plants come spring.

Blais went on to say, “Most people come here in the spring they’re ready to be gardening in the spring, but for any master gardener, they’ll tell you fall is actually one of the best times to be putting that compost on. Then you’re ready to go in the spring. You can use it as a mulch, you can use it to start new beds, you can use it to fill in patches in your lawn and a refurbish your lawn, it helps all the plants to grow”.

For no charge at all you can bring your piles of leaves to the WLSSD compost site until November 1st. They will be open for the season Thursday through Monday.