A South Florida property generates more green waste than people moving here expect. Palms drop fronds year round. Hedges grow at a rate that would be alarming anywhere else. And after any decent blow, the whole neighbourhood is on the verge.
The good news is that vegetative waste is one of the few categories where nearly all of it can stay out of a landfill. The catch is that it only works if it is kept apart from everything else.
Keep it separate — this is the whole thing
Municipalities across Broward run separate collection for vegetative waste precisely because it can be processed into mulch and compost rather than buried.
The moment a broken fence panel, a bag of household rubbish or a plastic planter goes into that pile, it stops being a compostable load and becomes general waste. In many cases the crew will simply skip it, and then you have a pile that is not going anywhere.
So: green in one pile, everything else in another. It costs nothing and it is the single highest-impact thing a homeowner can do here.
Palm fronds deserve their own paragraph
They are heavier than they look, stiff, edged, and awkward to bundle. A pile of them is deceptively dense — what looks like a modest heap is often a substantial load by weight.
They also do not compact. Ten fronds take up roughly the space of ten fronds no matter how you stack them, which is why frond piles look enormous relative to what they weigh.
If you are cutting them yourself, stack them the same way round. It sounds fussy and it roughly halves the volume.
What municipal collection covers
Most Broward cities collect vegetative waste from single-family homes on a schedule, with limits on quantity and how it is presented — often bundled or cut to a maximum length.
That works well for routine trimming. Where it stops working:
- After a storm, when county-wide volume overwhelms the schedule for weeks
- After tree work, where the volume far exceeds a normal collection
- When you need the driveway usable before the next collection day
- When the pile includes non-vegetative material
Tree work is its own thing
Worth being clear: we haul, we do not do tree surgery. Removing a standing tree, or any cutting that involves climbing or working near lines, is a licensed arborist's job.
What we do is what comes after. Plenty of homeowners have a tree company do the cutting and then discover the quote did not include hauling the debris away, or included only part of it. That pile is exactly our work.
If you are getting tree quotes, ask explicitly whether removal of the debris is included. It is a common and expensive assumption.
The rest of the yard
Green waste is usually only half of a yard clearout. The rest tends to be:
- Old fencing and gate panels
- Rotted decking
- Sun-destroyed patio furniture
- Cracked planters and edging
- Sheds and playsets past their life
- Scrap metal, which recycles well
- Bags of soil, gravel and paving offcuts
All of that we take, and it gets sorted the same way as any load — metal to recycling, timber and general waste to disposal, green kept separate.
What it costs
Volume-priced. A routine yard clear-up is often a quarter to half truckload, in the $150 to $400 range. A post-tree-work pile or a full property clear runs to a full load.
Heavy material like soil, gravel and paving is quoted on site because weight rather than volume becomes the constraint. Mention it on the call.
The seasonal advice
Do the big clear in spring. Not for appearances — because everything loose in your yard becomes a projectile in a storm, and because in September every hauler in Broward County is booked.
Call (954) 536-8189. Tell us roughly the pile size and whether there is anything non-green in it.
Need this done rather than read about?
Free quote, firm price given on site before anything moves, and same-day service across Coral Springs and all of Broward County. Licensed and insured — and we do every bit of the lifting.
