The City of New Albany would like to thank residents for their patience with this year’s leaf collection. It has been an unusual year as it relates to the timing of trees dropping their leaves. This fall has been very dry, and the lack of rainfall has enabled the leaves to hang on longer than usual. Very few leaves fell in the first few weeks of our pickup as compared with years past. Now that the leaves have fallen practically all at once, the piles along the streets have been much larger in volume and require additional time to clear. Trucks also have to be emptied more frequently, contributing to the current delay. The city has had two leaf machines in constant use for several weeks, and our team has been working 10-12 hour days for the past two weeks to get caught up. The first week of November alone, our crews picked up more than 160 tons of leaves – more than 1/3 of what we would expect to collect for the entire season of roughly 9 weeks.

We appreciate your patience and will have your street cleared as soon as possible.