Wave goodbye to special leaf collection

At the same time that Mayor Bloomberg is stepping up his campaign to plant 1 million trees, the Sanitation Department plans to eliminate a special leaf-collection program due to budget cuts.

The agency pruned $2.2 million from its $1.3 billion budget for fiscal 2009 as part of a larger reduction Bloomberg imposed throughout city government to deal with the economic downturn.

Actually, Sanitation Department spokesman Vito Turso said leaves would continue to be collected with regular trash.

What's being eliminated are four special Sunday leaf collections, each falling within 37 of the city's 59 tree-laden community boards, covering all of Queens and Staten Island and sections of Brooklyn and The Bronx.

Those leaves were brought - on overtime - to collection centers and turned into compost.

CITY LEAVING LEAVES BEHIND