Yard Waste & Leaves
On this page, you will find:
Look up your Set-Out Date
Set-Out Dates
Your set-out date for yard waste will be on a Sunday.
If your yard waste is not out for pickup on the set-out date, you may miss your collection opportunity.
When will the Streets Division collect my yard waste?
Yard waste is picked up sometime during the work week after your Sunday set-out date.
Many neighborhoods share the same set out date.
It takes time to get through all of them.
What do I do with yard waste when crews aren't collecting it from the curb?
Take it to a drop-off site or compost it at home.
Yard waste has been banned from the trash for all of Wisconsin since the 1990s. Never put leaves, grass clippings, and so on in the trash.
Do not put yard waste in the recycling carts. Recycling carts are only meant for bottles, cans, paper, cardboard, and similar items.
How to Place Yard Waste
Please follow these guidelines to make sure we can pick up your yard waste.
- Pile your leaves and yard waste on the terrace, or on the grass at the edge of the street. Do not put leaves in the street.
- Keep yard waste at least 4 feet away from trees, cars, utility poles, mailboxes, fire hydrants, and other obstructions.
Covering & Bagging Leaves
You do not need to cover or bag your leaves. However, this helps keep leaves from blowing into the street.
- Compostable paper leaf bags (preferred): Keep your bags open at the top so we can see what is inside.
- Plastic bags: Keep your bags open at the top. We will cut open plastic bags and leave them on the terrace or in your trash cart.
- Tarp or plastic sheet cover: You can cover your leaf piles with a tarp to keep them from blowing away.
Yard Waste vs. Brush
- Please separate yard waste and leaves from brush. Yard waste and brush are separate collections.
- Yard waste is plant material raked or pulled from your lawn or garden, including:
- Leaves, weeds, grass clippings, and garden trimmings
- Twigs less than 18 inches long
- Pumpkins, black walnuts, crab apples, vines, corn stalks, pine cones, seed pods, etc.
- Brush is sticks and branches from trees, shrubs, or bushes.
Leave the Leaves
When possible, the Engineering Division encourages you to consider leaving leaves in place on your lawns and gardens.
This can help retain nutrients and moisture. Plus, you can help reduce carbon emissions associated with crews collecting so many leaves each year.
Benefits of Leaves & Yard Waste
The term "yard waste" is commonly used in Wisconsin to describe the plant material generated by our lawns and gardens. However, your fall leaves and other plant materials has many benefits.
They contain nutrients you can use for your lawns when you compost it.
When you use leaves as mulch, they can be homes for caterpillars and important pollinators for the winter months.
Protect Our Lakes
Leaves contain nutrients like phosphorus that are harmful to our lakes and rivers. They contribute to algae blooms and murky water.
When it rains on leaves in the road, the rain takes nutrients from those leaves into the storm drains. And the storm drains take the nutrients into our lakes.
You can help protect our lakes by changing the way you rake your leaves.
- Rake leaves out of the street and onto the terrace before it rains.
- Mulch leaves in your yard using a lawn mower.
- Compost leaves instead of setting them on the curb.
- Cover leaf piles to keep them from blowing into the street.
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Will you do more than three pickups in the fall? Why are there only three guaranteed pickups in the fall?
If weather allows for an extra pickup, and if conditions require an extra pickup, we will.
And we will announce the "last chance" pickup before we start.
We cannot guarantee you will get more than three pickup chances.
The same people who pickup your leaves are the same people who drive the snowplows. We don't know when the snow will start. We work as fast as we can using all the trucks and personnel we can spare in the window of time we have to collect leaves.
More Details
Guaranteed leaf collection starts in October and it does not finish for everyone until the first week of December. (Your neighborhood might have an earlier final set out date, but we have other neighborhoods to service and that takes us right through the Thanksgiving holiday.)
We put every available truck and person we can assign to leaf pickup on this duty and it still takes this much time.
If the weather allows for an extra pickup, and it is needed, we will perform a "last chance" pickup in December.
We’ve done “last chance” collections for the past few years, but we can’t promise it will happen every year - we just don't know what the weather will be year to year.
If it snows, we need our people in the plow trucks working on the roads, sidewalks, bus stops, and so on.
And, any big snowfall would just cover your leaf piles where our crews would struggle to see them.
Rest assured, if the weather allows for it, and conditions call for it, we will do a "last chance" pickup in December and we will announce it before we start.
Make sure you stay tuned to your local news sources so you know if we do any extra pickups.
Sign up to receive the blog posts from your alder. Stay connected to your neighborhood newsletters. You may even want to sign up to receive news from the City of Madison just so you can stay informed what is happening locally.
Why can't I see yard waste set out dates?
If you can't see a set out date, there are two probable reasons for it.
Before we get into the reasons, let's say this important thing first: If you have yard waste and we are not collecting it, take it to a drop-off site or compost it at home.
Option 1: You May Be Looking for Yard Waste During the Off-Season
You may be checking the website during one of the pauses in curbside pickup or after a season has concluded.
The spring set-out dates are typically published online sometime in late February or early March.
We perform the spring collection in April and May in most years.
The fall set out dates are usually published to the website time in late August or early September.
We perform the fall collection in October through November.
So, if you are looking for yard waste set out dates in January, or really anytime from June through the early part of August, you probably won't see any yard waste set out dates.
Option 2: Tech Issue or a Data Entry Issue?
Most often cause is that there was a small error in how the address was entered into the form. You just have to enter your street address into the form - just house number and street name. That's it.
There could be a technical hiccup, too, they often sort themselves out in about an hour, so I would just check back or contact the Streets Division.
When do you collect yard waste?
We collect yard waste during two periods.
We pick it up in the spring. The first pickup is usually in April and the second pickup is in May.
There is a pause during the summer as crews are needed elsewhere.
We collect again in the fall. Usually the fall collections start in October. There are three guaranteed pickups during this season. And then we have another pause in the winter as crews are needed for snow duties.
Why isn't there year-round yard waste pickup?
Take yard waste to a drop-off site when collections are not occurring.
The Streets Division performs many other duties and we need to move staff around to perform them.
For example, crews that collect yard waste in the spring are needed for other work in the summer - typically road repair.
In the fall, we stop brush pickup so we can shift that personnel over to help collect the fall leaves.
The set out date form isn't recognizing my address. What do I do?
Call us at either 608-266-4681 or 608-246-4532. Our office hours are Monday to Friday, 7:30am to 4pm.
Usually it's a temporary tech issue that resolves itself or maybe a subtle data entry issue (like an extra space or more information than what is necessary).
Either way, give us a call and we will help.
My neighbor put yard waste in the street! I know that's wrong. What should I do?
That's an ordinance violation.
Let Building Inspection know so they can notify the property owner of the problem and give them a chance to fix it before they need to issue a fine.
You have three ways of reporting this. Choose the one that works best for you.
- Send a report a problem of yard waste in the street (this is in the Yard Waste Collection section).
- Call Building Inspection directly at 608-266-4551.
- Email Building Inspection directly.
The website is showing the next set out date, but my yard waste still hasn't been picked up yet. What is going on?
The set out date lookup is a simple tool.
If a set out date has passed, then the system will default to showing you the next available set out date where you can get yard waste out for pickup.
You can't use the set-out date look up to track the progress of where crews are working.
If you put yard waste out on the Sunday assigned to your home, crews have that whole work week to collect from all of the neighborhoods. It takes multiple days during a work week to get to everyone.
If you are sure your pile is missed, please use the the report-a-problem form or contact us to let us know.
Why is there so much debris in the road after pickup in the fall??
We will clean it up when conditions allow for it.
The final step in leaf pickup is street sweeping. In the fall, we work to have our sweepers trail behind leaf crews to collect debris created by leaf collection crews.
There are far more leaf pickup crews than sweepers. And sweepers move much slower than leaf pickup crews, too.
There will be a gap between collection and sweeping.
It can be a few days between collection and sweeping.
We do our best try to keep the sweeping window as narrow as possible, but there will be a gap.
The cause for leaf debris in the street is varied. It can be related to road condition, weather, and even equipment issues.
Whatever the cause, if weather conditions allow for it, our sweepers will be there during following the three guaranteed leaf pickups.
If you remain concerned, you can submit a Yard Waste Collection report-a-problem form to let us know so the field supervisor can look into the matter.