BILLINGS — Before the anticipated snowfall hits Billings this week, residents spent the past weekend cleaning up leaves from their yards and dropping them off at one of the eight leaf collection sites provided by the city.
Veterans Park is one of the more popular drop-off locations, with garbage bags of leaves overflowing the large blue bins on Monday morning.
“(This area was) mounded up with bags earlier this morning, so we’ve obviously been here before now, cleaning it up,” said the City of Billings solid waste superintendent Kyle Foreman Monday afternoon while standing in an area that a few hours earlier was filled with leaf bags.
Leaf clean-up season has always been a busy one for Billings Public Works, and this season came with a few updates for the agency. They added two additional drop-off locations this year, the Mayflower Congregational Church and Pioneer Park.
“This is our biggest year yet, so we’ve expanded to two different sites other than the six that we’ve had the last couple of years,” Foreman said. “In 2023, we did all new residential collection routes by zone. We changed our extras program into a curbside cardboard collection program. So, we are no longer providing monthly extra collection just as a monthly route. We’re still providing it, but you have to call us to let us know that you have it and there is a small fee attached to it.”
According to Foreman, there is no longer a monthly pickup for bagged leaves at a home. If someone wants public works to pick up leaves, they must arrange it with the agency. Foreman said it would be about $5 for every three garbage bags of leaves.
Billings resident Scott Sery is not happy with the changes from weekly pickup in 2021, to monthly pickup in 2022, and now no pickup unless scheduled and purchased.
“Now, they’re not doing that pickup and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah we’re offering these conveniently located dumpsters.’ I drive a Honda Civic. I can maybe fit one bag of leaves into the back of that thing,” Sery said. “Is it not enough employees to drive the trucks around to pick them up? There was really no reasoning behind, ‘Hey we’re just, we don’t want to do it anymore so haul your bags across town and dump them yourself.'”
Foreman said that the number of staff available is a reason for the change, and he understands some people's frustrations.
“We couldn’t staff it anymore; it was hard on our staff. Lots of injuries, lots of workers comp. We had to really start to take a look at it,” Foreman said. “You know, what used to be a monthly collection is no longer there so I understand the frustration. It’s not that we are not providing it, we’re just not providing it the way we used to.”
The collection bins should remain available until Dec. 8, weather permitting.
