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Greensboro's 'Leave the Leaves' program lets rakers off the hook

According to Greensboro's Office of Sustainability and Resilience, leaving leaves on your lawn instead of bagging and sending them to Greensboro’s compost facility can have numerous benefits. DAVID FORD/WFDD

According to Greensboro's Office of Sustainability and Resilience, leaving leaves on your lawn instead of bagging and sending them to Greensboro’s compost facility can have numerous benefits. DAVID FORD/WFDD

For those who are tired of raking leaves, Greensboro officials have a message that may be music to your ears: Leave the Leaves. It’s part of the city’s educational initiative that encourages residents to consider environmentally friendly landscaping practices. 

Hauling around noisy gas-powered blowers, and stuffing piles of leaves into plastic bags is hard work — and hard on the environment. The carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide emissions warm the atmosphere; the roar of those engines approximates that of a passenger jet; and the sheer volume of yard waste can be a burden to municipal collections and composting operations. 

Shree Dorestant, Greensboro’s chief sustainability officer, helped launch the city’s Leave the Leaves initiative to educate residents on the many benefits of mulching or simply letting leaves compost in place.

"All of those nutrients there stimulate plant growth — especially for our native plants," says Dorestant. "And it’s like you’re thinking about an entire ecosystem where you have insects and that’s their habitat."

And if the temptation to rake is too great, Dorestant recommends moving leaves onto flower beds and tree bases to retain moisture, or onto sloped areas to help prevent soil erosion. 

Before his arrival in the Triad, David had already established himself as a fixture in the Austin, Texas arts scene as a radio host for Classical 89.5 KMFA. During his tenure there, he produced and hosted hundreds of programs including Mind Your Music, The Basics and T.G.I.F. Thank Goodness, It's Familiar, which each won international awards in the Fine Arts Radio Competition. As a radio journalist with 88.5 WFDD, his features have been recognized by the Associated Press, Public Radio News Directors Inc., Catholic Academy of Communication Professionals, and Radio Television Digital News Association of the Carolinas. David has written and produced national stories for NPR, KUSC and CPRN in Los Angeles and conducted interviews for Minnesota Public Radio's Weekend America.

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