Yard Waste and Brush Removal in Chicopee, MA

Yard waste has been shut out of Massachusetts disposal since 31 December 1993, and it is one of the oldest entries on the ban list under 310 CMR 19.017. It cannot go in the trash and it never could, in your lifetime as a homeowner.

It goes to composting instead, which is genuinely the right end for it. Leaves, grass, brush and branches all break down into something with a use, and disposal costs less than mixed waste, which is why this is one of the cheaper things to have hauled.

Around here a pile runs $150 to $400. Storm damage with heavy limbs sits above that because of the weight and because it usually needs cutting before it will load. Bagged leaves in the fall are the cheap end.

The city does a lot of this for free

Chicopee runs seasonal yard waste collection and the drop off center on Baskin Drive takes it from residents Tuesday through Saturday. If you can get it there, do. This is worth paying for when the pile is too big for a car, when the collection window has closed, or when it is heavy limbs you cannot cut and carry yourself.

Storm work is different work

A limb across a yard is not the same job as bagged clippings. Big wood is dense, awkward, and often has to be cut into loadable lengths before it moves. Anything hung up in a tree, leaning on a roof, or near a power line is a tree service job and not a hauling one.

The honest line is this: a hauler removes what is already on the ground. A tree company takes down what is still standing or still hanging. If somebody offers to do both with a chainsaw and a pickup, that is the wrong person to have near your house.

After a real storm, expect to wait. Every crew in the valley gets called the same afternoon and the backlog runs long. Book anyway, because the alternative is that the pile sits there until spring.

What counts and what does not

In: branches, brush, leaves, grass, garden trimmings, small stumps you have already dug out. Out: soil, sod, rocks and gravel, which are heavy and go to different places entirely, and pressure treated lumber, which is not yard waste at all. Old deck boards and torn out railing are construction debris rather than brush, and they price on a different scale.