The city of Cape Girardeau is saving about $64,000 per year with its new automated leaf pickup service. The city spent about $88,000 on average between 2009 and 2011 on leaf pickup. The city first used the new leaf pickup system in 2012, and spent approximately $24,500.
Public works director Tim Grambling said under the old system, the city used 24 employees and 15 pieces of equipment to pick up leaves in November and December. Now, they use one piece of equipment and one employee.
“This time, with only having to have one person, those crews were actually able to stay on the streets fixing concrete, patching potholes, gravelling, grating alley and trimming trees,” Grambling said “All the activities that they normally do they were actually able to spend, I think it was a total of about 3,500 labor hours on that they wouldn’t have spent on those activities otherwise.”
In addition, Grambling said the new leaf collecting truck was able to pick up about eight times as many leaves per hour.
“We were able to get around in front of everybody’s house during the normal time that we did in November and December. Then on top of that, we were able to extend our collection for another three months and was able to get in front of every house about six times.”
The city now collects leaves November through March. The new leaf collecting truck cost the city $150,000 to purchase.