Leaf Pickup in Lexington: Rules, Bags, and Dates

Most cities this size run a separate fall leaf operation: rake to the curb, wait for the vacuum truck, check the zone map for your week. Lexington does not. Search for a Lexington leaf schedule and you will not find one, because there is nothing to publish.

If you have city waste service, we will pick up yard waste (bags and carts) each week on your regular collection day. That material is turned into mulch.

Yard waste is picked up on the same day as your blue and green carts, all year, with exceptions for weather and holidays. So the answer to when do they come to my street is whatever day your carts already go out.

One thing that does change in the fall: during leaf season, bags are often serviced by a different crew than the one emptying carts, so your bags can disappear noticeably later in the day than your carts do. That is normal, not a missed pickup.

1. Fill the gray cart first, and leave the material loose.

   Material in the cart should be loose, not bagged. Do not line the cart with a bag and do not drop a full paper bag inside it. One gray yard waste cart comes with residential city waste service.

2. Put the overflow in paper yard waste bags beside the cart.

   Anything that does not fit goes in paper yard waste bags placed next to the gray cart on collection day. There is no limit published on how many bags you can set out.

3. Use paper. Only paper.

   Covered in its own box below, because it is the thing that sends a whole afternoon of raking to the landfill.

4. Get the timing and the spacing right.

   Carts go to the curb no earlier than 4 p.m. the day before collection and no later than 5 a.m. on collection day, and must come back off the curb by 7 p.m. that day. Leave 3 feet between carts and between a cart and anything else, including parked cars and mailboxes. Handles face your house, opening faces the street. A cart the truck arm cannot reach does not get emptied.

Free bag coupons, and where to redeem them

The city mails coupons for free paper yard waste bags in its At Your Service newsletter, which goes to households twice a year. The coupons are redeemable at Chevy Chase Hardware, Home Depot, Kroger, Lowe's, Meijer and Walmart. Worth watching the mail for in early fall, since it is the one part of leaf season that is free. Those same retailers sell the bags outright if you have no coupon.

The free leaf chute almost nobody knows about

The city gives away free leaf chutes to residents with city waste service. A chute slides inside a yard waste bag so the bag holds itself open: stand it up and it works as a funnel, lay it on its side and it works as a leaf dustpan. Supply is limited and the limit is one per household. Pick one up at either of these:

• Electronics Recycling Center, 1306 Versailles Road. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.; Wednesday noon to 4 p.m.; Saturday 8 a.m. to noon.
• Lexington Senior Center, 195 Life Lane. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m.

This is the habit people bring with them from cities that do run leaf vacuums. Here it accomplishes nothing except moving the pile somewhere worse.

Never dispose of leaves or other yard waste by putting it in the street. It can clog storm drains, leading to flooding issues. It also overwhelms local creeks with nutrients, causing water quality issues.

A pile in the gutter is a plug waiting for the next hard rain, and the street in front of your house is usually uphill of a storm drain that backs up onto somebody. The city also runs an Adopt a Storm Drain program for residents willing to keep a nearby drain clear of leaves and debris and report problems to LexCall.

Two different size limits apply, and which one you need depends on whether the wood goes in the cart or beside it.

• In the gray cart: sticks and branches must be less than 4 feet long and less than 6 inches in diameter.
• Next to the cart: bundle branches with twine and place the bundle at the curb. Bundles must be less than 4 feet long and weigh less than 50 pounds.

A loose heap of brush at the curb satisfies neither rule, which is the usual reason a pile is still sitting there the following week. Cut long limbs down to 4 feet, tie them with twine, and keep each bundle light enough for one person to pick up.

After a storm

The same 4-foot figure carries into storm cleanup. After the September 2024 windstorm the city told residents with city waste service to stack debris between the sidewalk and the curb, and those without sidewalks to place it at the edge of the yard near the curb:

Residents with city waste service can stack debris between the sidewalk and curb for collection. Those without sidewalks should place debris at the edge of their yard, close to the curb. Material will be picked-up as part of the normal weekly service as long as it is cut in 4-foot sections.

That notice was written for one storm and is not a standing rule, so check what the city announces after the next one. Our storm debris page collects the standing rules and what the city has relaxed after past storms, and the Lexington power outage guide covers reporting and safety during the storm itself.

Goes in the gray cart

• Branches and brush, within the size limits above
• Grass and plant clippings
• Leaves
• Decorations made from plants, once the non-organic parts are off

On that last one, the city is specific:

Decorations made from plants can be placed in your cart. This includes carved or whole pumpkins, and leaf and berry wreaths. Remove all wires, candles, lights and other non-organic materials before placing these items in your cart.

Which is the rare civic rule with a deadline set by your porch: the jack-o'-lantern that has begun to fold in on itself is compostable, the tea light inside it is not.

Never goes in the gray cart

• Food scraps. The single most common surprise:

Food scraps - This material should go in the green trash cart OR be composted! The City is unable to compost food scraps.

• Plant pots. Green trash cart. Non-plastic ones can be donated if they are still usable.
• Yard tools. Green trash cart if unusable, donation if not.
• Excess soil. A little in the roots is fine. The rest goes back on your yard.
• Trash. The city rule of thumb: if it did not come directly from a plant, it goes in the green cart.
• Plastic bags. Both as a container and as an item. Do not bag material in the gray cart at all.

Note that plant-based food scraps like coffee grounds, banana peels and apple cores are fine in a backyard compost pile, just not in the city cart. The distinction is about what the city compost facility can process, not about whether the material is organic.

Late October: extra crews

Extra crews will begin helping with the yard waste bag collection process in late October. The exact date is based on when the leaves fall.

So there is no date to circle. The city times it to the leaf drop, and it has not historically announced the exact start day in advance. What it changes for you is mostly timing: bags may be serviced later in the day than carts, because a different crew is handling them.

Daily cutoff, and the Halloween exception

Crews collect daily until 5:30 p.m., except on Halloween, when they stop at 5 p.m. The city asks that you not call LexCall about a missed pickup until after 5:30 p.m. on your scheduled service day, which is the most common way to waste a phone call in November.

Missed pickups go to a makeup day

Missed yard waste is collected on the next makeup day, which is a Wednesday or a Saturday. Leave it at the curb rather than pulling it back in.

Christmas trees are collected after the holiday through mid-January. Simply place the tree at the curb for pickup on your regular collection day after removing all lights, tinsel and ornaments.

Trees go through the same yard waste stream as leaves and branches, so the same logic applies: everything that is not tree has to come off first. Lights, tinsel, ornaments, garland, the stand, and any plastic tree bag. A flocked tree is still a tree, but the hardware on it is not.

No appointment and no special sticker. Curb, regular collection day, any week from after the holiday through mid-January. An artificial tree is not yard waste at all; it is trash or a donation.

Fayette County residents can take up to two pickup-truck loads of yard waste per month to the Haley Pike Waste Management Facility free of charge. This is open to residents whether or not they have city collection, which makes it the main option for addresses off a city route.

• Haley Pike Waste Management Facility, 4216 Hedger Lane.
• Open Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Closed Wednesdays and weekends, unless a Wednesday is being used as a holiday makeup day.
• Aim to arrive by 4:30 p.m. The two city pages do not agree on the closing time. The yard waste page says gates close at 5 p.m. and that you must arrive by 5 p.m. to be served. The leaf page says the facility is open until 5:30 p.m. Both are official, so the safe move is the earlier number plus a buffer: get there by 4:30 p.m. and it does not matter which page is current. Rolling up at 5:15 on the strength of the leaf page is how people get turned away with a truck bed full of leaves.
• Proof of residency is required. A driver's license or other proof of Fayette County residence.
• Bagging is optional, plastic still is not. Material taken to Haley Pike does not need to be bagged. If you do bag it, use paper: material in plastic bags will not be accepted.
• Tarp open-bed loads. Anything hauled in an open truck bed should be covered.

In some past seasons the city has waived the drop-off fee for other material late in the year. That is announced separately when it happens, so check the city leaf page rather than assuming it is running.

If you do not have city collection

Besides Haley Pike, the city suggests leaving grass clippings on the lawn and mulching leaves with a mower, starting a compost pile, or putting a limited amount of material in a green trash cart, limited enough that the lid closes when you set it out.

Collected yard waste goes to the city compost facility and is turned into mulch. The city gives that mulch back to residents free at its Mulch Giveaway events a couple of times a year.

Which is the whole reason the plastic bag rule is enforced as hard as it is. A load that arrives contaminated cannot go into the compost stream, so it gets landfilled instead. The rules on this page are almost all downstream of one constraint: whatever is in the gray cart has to be able to become mulch.

The option that skips the whole system

The city also makes the case for not setting leaves out at all. Left on the ground they provide winter habitat for pollinators. Mowed into the lawn, in a couple of passes, they break down into the soil and no special mower is required. Either way it is less work than bagging, and it is the one approach where the plastic bag question never comes up.

• Missed pickup, or you need a gray cart: LexCall 311, or (859) 425-2255. Requests can also be submitted online through lexingtonky.gov. For a missed pickup, wait until after 5:30 p.m. on your service day.
• Waste Management directly: wastemanagement@lexingtonky.gov, 675 Byrd Thurman Dr., Monday to Friday 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• Schedule changes from weather or holidays: the city runs text and email waste management alerts you can sign up for on its waste collection page.