Clean sweep

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Boom operator Raymond Millwood clears leaves from a curbside in east Cullman Thursday, while Walter Meyers looks on. An abundance of fall foliage has the sanitation department deploying additional crews and machinery in an effort to clear away the remnants of autumn debris. Ben Bullard

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December 18, 2009

City sanitation department working hard to pick up fall foliage

Ben Bullard The Cullman Times The Cullman Times Fri Dec 18, 2009, 08:00 AM CST

CULLMAN — When the holiday season rolls around, Cullman residents can expect to hear the city’s leaf-sweeping crews rolling by.

The sanitation department is running multiple teams of leaf pickup crews from now until Christmas, in the hope of clearing the majority of the city’s seasonal debris away before the end of the year.

“It’s something we start around the middle of November and try to have finished before Christmas,” said sanitation department Superintendent Delwin Kilgo. “People want to have their leaves cleared and their yards looking nice by the time they start to get company around Christmastime.”

To that end, the department is running extra crews and machinery in order to clear the city’s curbsides on time, said Assistant Superintendent Larry Jones.

“We’ve had boocoodles of leaves,” said Jones. “We’re running three street sweepers behind our boom loaders; whereas we normally have one sweeper running at other times.”

Convenience is one of the best incentives for homeowners to ready their leaves and limbs for pickup, Jones said.

“We make it really simple. There’s no restriction about when or where people can set out their leaves,” he said. “No bagging requirements or anything like that. Leaves can be piled on either side of the street and people can set them out at any time of day - we’ll come and get it and carry everything away.”

While the bulk of this year’s effort is behind them, crews are still hurrying to complete the city-wide cleanup before Christmas. Plenty of rainfall in 2009 has led to heavier foliage growth than in recent years, keeping crews on a tight schedule, according to Jones. But, he says, the crews are used to deadlines.

“There’s a cycle that keeps us busy year-round,” said Jones. “When this is finished, there will be other things that need our attention - we go straight from bush hogging and mowing in the summer to clearing leaves and limbs in fall and the winter time. We stay busy.”

Hauling it all away is only part of the cleanup process for sanitation crews, said Jones. Discarded vegetation is processed separately from household refuse, ending up in a landfill designated for composting organic matter. According to Jones, that gives the decaying plant material a second life.

“We put everything in what is called an inert landfill,” he said. “It’s a mulch pile we maintain off of Convent Road beside the animal shelter. The city uses it to mulch a lot of the new flower beds and for landscaping in the different parks we have.”

Residents are welcome to the mulch, too, said Kilgo - so long as they are willing to wield a shovel. “It’s available year-round and it’s free to come and get,” he said. “We have a lot of gardeners and people who use it as compost fodder. All you have to do is come and haul it away yourself.”

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Clean sweep

City sanitation department working hard to pick up fall foliage

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