Leaf clearing

Our street cleaning contractor Krinkels clear leaves from streets in the borough as part of the scheduled sweeping programme. Every year we clear over 1,000 tonnes of leaves from local streets and parks. We are not able to clear leaves from private roads, driveways or forecourts.

2025's leaf clearing operation started on Monday 13 October.

Autumn leaf fall season

This can occur anytime from mid-October to mid-January depending on weather conditions. During periods of heavy leaf fall additional resources are provided and the teams work longer hours and weekends to clear the bulk of the leaves from streets as quickly as possible. These teams are allocated following inspections, with resources mainly being deployed in streets with the heaviest leaf fall, such as those lined with large street trees and those adjacent to parks and commons.

The additional resources support the scheduled cleansing programme and will remove the heavy bulk of the leaves. The remaining debris will be cleared by for the scheduled cleansing teams.

Street cleaning schedule

Check the street cleansing schedule for your street. During this period your street sweeping may occur later than normal but still in the scheduled week.

Resident clearing of roads

If residents or resident groups are proactive in clearing the leaves from the road that they live on, we are happy to discuss this to see if there is any support we can offer.

Email wasteandrecycling@richmond.gov.uk for the attention of Martin Lewis.

Getting rid of leaves

You can leaf mulch or create you own leaf mould container at home. There are various guides to these processes online.  Simply search for leaf mulch or leaf mould guides in your preferred search engine.

For other options for how to deal with your leaves and garden waste please visit the garden recycling pages.

Home composting

You can produce your own compost at home using suitable kitchen and/or garden waste. Composting your kitchen and garden waste at home avoids any costs and impacts associated with waste collection and disposal and provides a supply of peat-free compost to improve your garden’s soil quality.

You can home compost suitable food and garden waste together in an open heap, using a home made container (e.g. made out of old wooden pallets) or using a container sold for this purpose.

If you have limited outdoor space, you can still compost suitable food waste using a wormery or use a 'Bokashi' system to produce compost for house plants.

Get advice on home composting from the Royal Horticultural Society.

You can buy compost bins and wormeries from the following places:

• Getcomposting.com - A wide range of containers is available via mail order, all at discounted prices for local residents
• Townmead Road Reuse and Recycling Centre - A limited range of containers is available for purchase on site. We buy these in bulk quantities and sell them on to residents at the lower price. Wormeries which are sold at an even lower subsidised price in order to encourage households that do not receive weekly food waste collections, most of which do not have gardens, to compost their food waste at home.