Wildlife We Throw Away

Fallen leaves are vital for wildlife. They offer insulation, cover from predators, and a place for wildlife to overwinter. When homeowners dispose of fallen leaves, they unknowingly destroy habitat. Additionally, they accidentally condemn the wildlife hidden among the leaves in yard waste bags to the landfill or the incinerator.

You might be shocked to learn just how many wildlife species hide well enough to end up in your yard waste bags. Moth cocoons can be incredibly well camouflaged, and firefly larvae might just be too small to notice!

Even if those yard waste bags miraculously contained no live wildlife, they were still full of the fallen leaves that many species depend on to stay sheltered through winter.

Where Do My Yard Waste Bags Go?

In one year alone, Americans disposed of over 35 million tons of yard waste, roughly the equivalent of 1.4 billion standard-size yard wastebags! That's enough leaves to fill the Empire State Building about 135 times by volume. And you might be surprised about where they end up:

Combustion with Energy Recovery (~7%)
It's hard to think about beloved fireflies and butterflies being incinerated, but it's where a few thousand tons of yard waste ends up each year.

Landfill (~30%)
Your yard waste bags might just end up going straight to the landfill. The leaves, sticks, and even wildlife in the bags will get trapped under other trash including plastics. This forces them to break down without oxygen. This process generates methane, a greenhouse gas 28 times as potent as CO₂.

When leaves break down in your garden beds or a home compost pile, this methane generation is avoided by providing oxygen to decomposing leaves.

Compost (~63%)
The percentage of yard waste going to composting facilities has been growing over the past few years, which is overall a good trend! However, it's important to remember that the wildlife in these yard waste bags won't survive this process either, as they will likely be ground up in this large-scale composting process. Plus, all the vital nutrients stored in those leaves and sticks have been moved away from your garden, meaning you will have to turn to costly fertilizer to replace it for next year's plants.

Home composting piles are often gentler on wildlife that get trapped among the leaves, compared to these larger scale composting facilities. This is because your home compost pile is typically smaller and doesn't use heavy equipment to turn or chop up the material.

These statistics come from the 2018 report from the EPA.

Knowing the negative consequences of our yard waste habits can help us to make changes better for wildlife, our gardens, and our wallets! You can make a huge positive impact by reducing your yard waste this year.

Take the leave the leaves pledge here!

Who's In Those Yard Waste Bags?

Moths and Butterflies

A new study shows that when you dispose of your leaves, you're also throwing away about 45% of your spring butterfly and moth populations! Many butterflies and moths use the fallen leaf layer as cover over the winter. Some overwinter as chrysalises or cocoons and can be incredibly tricky to differentiate from leaves.

Fireflies

There's been a lot of talk about firefly numbers declining in recent years. Many homeowners hope to see these amazing insects in their summer gardens, but they may not realize they're throwing them away in fall!

Fireflies start their lives as larva called "glowworms". In this stage, many species of fireflies spend their days in the damp layer of leaves and logs on the ground. This larval stage can last up to a few years for some firefly species, so keeping the leaves in your garden is critical to seeing more fireflies in the years to come! Learn more here.

Roly Polies

Kids across the country love seeing these little isopods roll up. These amazing creatures are decomposers. They eat the fallen leaves and turn them into natural fertilizer for your garden. The damp environment of the leaf layer is perfect for them since they breathe using gills. This is because they're not insects at all, but terrestrial crustaceans!

Salamanders

Salamanders thrive in the damp environment of the leaf layer. The leaves can also help insulate the soil over winter, keeping it from freezing and ensuring the salamanders survive the cold season.

Native Bees

While most native bees are solitary and do not form hives, there are notable exceptions! Like all bumble bees, yellow-faced bumble bees form colonies, but the males and workers die off as winter begins. The queen needs to find a safe space just below the leaves to survive the cold season and live to form another colony from scratch next year.

Other native bees often use the brown, hollow stems of plants for an overwintering site. Leaving these brown stems standing through winter is another great way to reduce fall yard waste and support wildlife!

A Treasure Trove of Other Invertebrate Species

The leaf layer is home to many insects and invertebrates that you might not even recognize or know the names of! That doesn't mean they're not important though. Many are decomposers, turning the leaves into fertilizer. They're also food for other wildlife that you may know and love like birds, frogs, and fireflies. Throwing away leaves has been shown to decrease spring emerging arthropods by 17%!

Leave the Leaves to Save Wildlife

One of the best fall gardening practices you can do for wildlife is to intentionally leave fallen leaves and logs in your yard. This can be done by raking them and using them as natural mulch in your garden beds. The fireflies, bumblebees, butterflies, and salamanders will thank you!

Learn about how to leave the leaves in a neighborhood and HOA-friendly way here!