We often get requests from societies to take away their rich dry leaves
resource that they get freely round the year, especially more so now during spring when there is lot of leaf shedding. Many a societies pay to dispose it off by shelling out money heavily to get rid of it. Some of them even resort to dangerous and banned method of burning the leaves thereby causing environment pollution to themselves, their families and their surroundings.
So we list below environment friendly solutions for same that can be easily adopted to resolve the issue:
a. Add them as mulch below trees/plants in a circle to harvest multiple benefits of lesser water requirement due to prevention of evaporation and lesser manure requirements bcos of microorganisms and earthworms creating manure eating the dry leaves.
b. Dry leaves can be used as a soilless potting medium in pots to be placed in ur society concrete spaces. This way u r saving the mountains and forests which r dug up to bring soil from there causing ecological disaster there by way of trees being felled and soil erosion. Add to that the cost of transporting soil and increase in carbon footprint.
c. Can be converted into leaf mold (a form of rich manure) by packing in gonis and keeping away in moist dark places for few months. This manure can be used for ur existing plants.
d. Pack it in gonis and donate it wherever reqd. As can be seen in picture below, Vasant Vihar Row House members have packed their dry leaves neatly in gonis and transport of same paid by our esteemed member Nilima Mohite residing there and these will be used in soilless terrace garden creation in a school.
Our other esteemed member Jaywant Vetkar has also found a solution to his society dry leaves accumulation by taking it to one of our plantation site and using the same for mulching below plants/trees.
So if there is a will, there is a way. Let us all explore ways to resolve dry leaves accumulation issue by finding environment friendly solutions as much as possible and using it as a valuable resource that it is.