Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: THURSDAY, January 12, 1995                   TAG: 9501120057
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: C-1   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: SARAH HUNTLEY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

MANY MOUNDS OF MULCH

"It's Mount Mulchmore here," the city's recycling coordinator said, joking as she climbed. Except Wasko was serious. Sort of.

At the risk of making a mountain out of a molehill, the city and Roanoke County have many mounds of mulch, all of it recycled from bagged leaves, downed branches and discarded Christmas trees. And they need to get rid of it.

So from now until the last load is gone, they are giving mulch away - free - to city or county residents. Both leaf mulch and brush mulch are available by the truckload, the carload, the wheelbarrow load or, heck, even by the handful, at the city's public works lot and the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority's garbage transfer station.

Roanoke and Roanoke County have sponsored a mulch giveaway program for years, but debris from last winter's ice storms has caused their supply to boom. Faced with a similar problem, other counties are doing the same. Montgomery County, which gave mulch away for the first time after last year's storms, renewed its giveaway program at the Mid-County Landfill last week.

"We got 8,000 tons of stuff in the storm debris, so we gave it away last year; but because everyone got mulch then, we've got quite a stockpile now," said Randall Bowling, Montgomery County's public facilities director. "We'll give the mulch away until we run out."

That's good news to landscapers and gardeners. Eric Waterman was at the Roanoke public works lot Tuesday afternoon for the second time that day, shoveling mulch with a pitchfork into the back of his blue pickup truck.

"I wish you wouldn't tell everyone about this," said Waterman, who runs a residential lawn-maintenance company. "Then they'll all know where to get it."

He leaned against his truck, his fingers darkened by dirt and debris. "I'm a firm believer in mulch, seriously," he said. "I'm for anything that saves time and looks pretty."

Waterman said he'll mix the leaf mulch with the soil in his clients' flower beds and vegetable gardens, and use the brush mulch, which is coarser with chips of wood and small branches, as a ground cover. Both types of mulch will cut back on the need to water and weed.

He plans to haul a lot.

"I'll need four truckloads for one garden," he said, "and probably eight or 10 for some of the others."

But don't worry. There will be plenty left. The city collects 450 tons of bagged leaves, 2,200 tons of brush and 85 tons of Christmas trees each year. Add to these figures the county's collections, and you're left with much mulch.

Robbie Saunders, a county employee, operates the tub grinder at the public works lot. He has run about 60 loads of leaves through the machine, which spins the load in a round tub, feeding the leaves through a grinder, before it shoots the fresh mulch out.

"They've already brought about 200 loads in," Saunders said. "There's a bunch of it to do, but believe it or not, the pile's come down a bit."

The machine chomps on one load in minutes, then is ready for the next. As it gets down to the remnants, it spits out the leftovers, like a whale blowing water out its spout, showering everything - and everyone - below with leaves and muck.

"It'll cover you up. There ain't no doubt about it," Saunders said.

No one is pretending the mulch is worth a lot of money. "Ours is not what you would consider high-grade mulch, because it's not one particular kind of wood. It's just a bunch of tree branches," said city spokeswoman Michelle Bono.

Nonetheless, both kinds of mulch are useful - and free.

"People say nothing's free anymore," Bono said. "But here's something that is, and it's from the government."

The public works lot is at the corner of Courtland Avenue and Carver Road Northwest (behind the Pizza Hut near the Roanoke Civic Center). Mulch may be picked up between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

Free mulch also is available at the Roanoke Valley Resource Authority transfer station at 1020 Hollins Road N.E. from 9:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. weekdays or 8 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturdays. The transfer station has a front-end loader.

In Montgomery County, mulch is available at the Mid-County Landfill off U.S. 460 from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Saturday.

At all sites, drivers should bring tarps to cover loads.