a most destructive fall ritual

We are in the middle of fall and that means plenty of leaves everywhere. Although leaves are a natural product and many people profess to be nature lovers, fallen leaves are not welcome in most neighborhoods. The more upscale the neighborhood, the less welcome those pesky leaves are. Unfortunately, well-off neighborhoods have plenty of leaves. Not only do folks in suburbia love trees, they love deciduous trees even if such trees are somewhat misplaced as is the case in much of California. Rich people, it seems love leaves. As long as those leaves hang on trees.

Come fall though, the nature lovers engage in a myriad of destructive habits to get rid of fallen leaves. Many prefer the highly polluting and noisy leaf-blowers, a "high-tech" solution to a non problem. Honestly raking leaves give many people some much needed exercise. But leaving the leaves where they are would be best of all.

Much of suburbia is too lazy and too obese to rake or even to handle something as bulky as a leaf-blower. So in come hundreds of immigrants driving old polluting trucks that are overloaded with junk, to blow away and scoop up those leaves. Will they take the leaves? Of course not, that is what the garbage company does. Another truck to clear the air.

Another method that is often used, especially on patios and driveways is to spray gallons of water. Yesterday we had a horrible storm that dumped more water on San Francisco in a 24hr period than any other storm in the last 47 years. Yet everyone let the water run off, overflow the drains, and flood the streets. And today many were happily spraying the debris and leaves off their driveways using fresh clean water from the tap. And I bet they thought nothing of it. They probably thought they were doing the planet a favor. Cleanliness above all else my friends!

After the leaves have been blown or sprayed onto a heap, they are quickly deposited in those big yard waste bins that Waste Management is so eager to provide. Then they will be hauled out with big polluting trucks driving through the neighborhoods. A third collection cycle with its own truck just to suit our needs. Garden debris makes up almost half of the garbage collected in the US. That is why your garden bin is the largest one you got.

I doubt many people realize that they have just hauled away (or let others haul away) valuable biomass; biomass that when left on the ground will form quality topsoil and replenish the lost nutrients. In any case, it is not the American way to re-use things. We need to get rid of what we have and buy new stuff. So to finish the cycle, our suburban homeowners will now go to the store and purchase petroleum-based fertilizers for their lawns. Fertilizer to provide nitrogen and other ingredients the plants need to grow new leaves. But when those leaves get too long (as in grass), or fall off (as in trees) they get cut and carted away. There goes the fertilizer. At least the part that did not run off and pollute the waterways. Because like all good citizens we dump plenty of fertilizer to grow our environmentally destructive lawns.

Instead of letting the soil reabsorb these nutrients, we blow them around, put them on big trucks and ship them away. Then we go out and buy new fertilizer. Does that make sense to you?