Dear PoP – What’s The Best Way To Dispose of Leaves?

DSCN3718, originally uploaded by Prince of Petworth.

“As the guru of DC living, I thought you might know: is there anything
useful I can do with a couple of bags of raked leaves other than put
them out with the trash?”

Of course I was a bit too slow and the reader was able to answer the question themselves:

“The answer is, bag them, place them next to your trash can on your trash pick up day (or second trash pick up day if you get two a week). I did that this morning and now they’re gone. Perhaps gone into the same dumpster as everything else, but I tried!

Here’s the language from the DPW website
(http://www.dpw.dc.gov/dpw/cwp/view,A,1202,Q,640237.asp)
DPW collects up to five bags (per week) of yard waste from residences
that receive DPW trash and recycling collection services. Yard waste
consists of bagged leaves, grass clippings, weeds, bulbs, twigs, pine
cones, and uprooted plants, as well as bundles of branches and limbs
tied into four-foot lengths.

Household trash, renovation materials, rocks, bricks and dirt are not
considered yard waste. Place bagged leaves and grass clippings where your trash is collected and tie branches and limbs into four-foot
lengths. Residents with once-a-week trash/recycling collections should place their bagged or bundled yard waste next to their trash and recycling containers on their collection day. Residents with twice-a-week trash/recycling collections should place their bagged and/or bundled yard waste next to their trash and recycling containers
on their second collection day. Up to five bags or bundles will be collected, depending upon the trash truck’s capacity to accept these materials.”

I thought there were also those big trucks that went around in November basically with a big vacuum sucking up all the leaves that you place on the curb. Is this a hallucination or do these trucks really exist? When do they come around?