SCRANTON, Pa. — Before raking up leaves this fall, residents of Scranton may want to make a trip to the city's DPW headquarters on West Poplar Street or to Weston Field along Providence Road to pick up free paper bags.
Only bagged leaves will be picked up by DPW crews this year.
"We're also asking people not to pile their leaves loosely on the curbside, all the leaves that we're going to remove for the residents will be in the bag form," said city DPW Director Tom Preambo.
While piled leaves were picked up in some neighborhoods in previous years, that will no longer be the case.
To make it easier, the city has set up five leaf collection days. They are the weeks of:
- October 12,
- October 26,
- November 9,
- November 24,
- December 7.
City crews will pick up both your recycling and the leaves on the same day.
"Many times, when the leaves fall, and they're not addressed, they're not removed from the streets, in heavy rainstorms, they'll wash into our basins. Then the basins become clogged, and the basins don't work correctly, they don't function correctly, they won't flow correctly when we do have another storm event," Preambo added.
City residents can pick up the leaf collection bags at DPW headquarters or Weston Field during regular business hours.