This is a glorious time of the year in many parts of the temperate zones; the leaves turn brown and golden before they fall off the deciduous trees, which are leafless in winter. Leaves form a valuable resource; they can be mulched and used to fertilise land as leaf mould, which is a high quality form of compost or they can be compacted and turned into a fuel, rather like a log that you can burn for warmth or they can be simply dumped into landfill sites.
In the United Kingdom landfill costs around £40 a tonne in tax, together with the associated costs of carrying the leaves to the landfill site and the costs of managing the site itself. Of the alternatives leaves in landfill (provided that the landfill is wholly used for leaves) is probably second in environmentally friendly to leaves being used for compost; both of these methods of disposal are better, environmentally speaking, than turning the leaves into fuel, because the carbon dioxide inherent in the carbon of dead leaves escapes far more slowly when the leaves are consigned to compost or landfill, than it does when the leaves are burnt. The trees from which the leaves have fallen are great stores of carbon; when they shed their leaves the leaves will return some of the carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, as the leaves decay. 
Leaf mould is really a no brainer for most people. If you have a place to store your leaves you can return the leaves to the soil after two years, or use their compost as top dressing, and potting compost. You can avoid buying peat, which without doubt is better left in the ground where it is found.
Leaves that fall into the streets are not usually composted; the local councils whose job it is to clear and dispose of these leaves are reluctant to recycle them because they will mix with litter, cigarette ends, and other items and this will “contaminate” the leaves. Perhaps they are being too precious, too health and safety conscious. I cannot see what harm will be done by recycling leaves that mix with the litter that I see on the streets every day.
Filed under: carbon dioxide, climate change, global warming | Tagged: recycling leaves
I disagree that landfilling leaves is environmentally friendly. When leaves decompose anaerobically, they produce methane instead of CO2. Methane is more damaging to the atmosphere than CO2.
Composting is carbon neutral, because the CO2 returned to the atmosphere is what the trees drew out in the first place.
This is a great post.. Very informative… I can see that you put a lot of hard work on your every post that’s why I think I’d come here more often. Keep it up! By the way, you can also drop by my blogs. They’re about Vegetable Gardening and Composting. I’m sure you’d find my blogs helpful too.
Landfill is not the best option, but in a controlled site you can tap off the methane and use it for power generation. Far better to compost the leaves.