Burning yard waste at home eliminates emissions from any transportation of the yard waste and provides wood ash that can be composted. However, it’s a better alternative than throwing yard waste in the trash if that is your only other alternative. Mulch can also be expensive, especially when you incur delivery fees, so using yard waste to create mulch can be a more affordable landscaping option too.īurning yard waste may not be the best alternative because it releases carbon from the organic matter into the atmosphere. Repurpose fallen branches and brush as mulch for your garden beds and other open spaces. Bare soil has much less life and biodiversity in it and is more prone to erosion than covered soil. With respect to soil health, mulch not only helps garden beds look nice, but it also covers bare soil. Many people also use Buy Nothing groups to swap services or skills, so you could request someone provide a gift of their time to help you accomplish the task. Ask to borrow one through a local Buy Nothing group if you don’t know someone who can lend their wood chipper to you. If you want to try creating your own mulch but don’t own a wood chipper, borrow one from a neighbor if you can. Had we been more diligent about mulching regularly, I’m certain we could have tackled this project ourselves. We tried borrowing a wood chipper from a neighbor, but we had far too much material to chip on our own after five years of neglect. Use a wood chipper or hire a tree removal service to chip your yard waste into mulch. Consider instead more responsible disposal alternatives like the following eco-friendly ways to dispose of organic yard waste. 8 Eco-friendly Ways to Dispose of Yard Wasteĭo the planet, your community, and future generations a favor by not tossing yard waste into the trash. While some landfills capture the methane for energy and some incinerators generate energy, organic yard waste has much higher and better uses than being turned into toxic gas for energy. Methane is a potent greenhouse gas that the United States Environmental Protection Agency says is at least 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere and contributing to climate change. When sent to a landfill, yard waste does not decompose properly and releases methane into the atmosphere. Yard waste, like food scraps, is organic waste that does not belong in a landfill or incinerator. Yard waste is vegetative or organic material that generates from regular yard and garden maintenance as well as natural attrition of plants in your yard. Below, I’ve included a bit more about what constitutes yard waste, why we should not put yard waste in the trash, and eight ways to dispose of yard waste that are good for the planet and good for your communities. It’s part of the life cycle of nature and can be used to return nutrients from plants back to the soil to continue the circle of life. Now we have six cubic yards of fresh mulch to spread in our yard. We decided to hire a service to do it for us and … a few hours later (seriously!) a large tree in our front yard split and fell, so we needed to hire a tree removal service anyway. We borrowed a wood chipper from a neighbor and quickly learned that that DIY project would take us all stupid summer. We thought about burning everything and putting the ash in the compost bin. After five years of pretending we could toss fallen branches into the woods and they’d magically disappear, we faced the facts and decided to clean them up a few weeks ago. Since moving into this house, we have piled up the smaller branches and brush in the woods at the side of our yard. Most of what falls, however, isn’t particularly useful to burn for heat. One of our neighbors has a wood stove, so they chop up the wood and use it to heat their home in the winter. When the larger branches and trunks fall, we enlist family and neighbors to help us clean up the mess. Most of the falling branches and brush are harmless, though we have had a couple of large trees fall in recent months. Inevitably, with each storm or windy day, branches fall from the treetops and sprinkle our yard. We have a lot of large trees in your yard.
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