CHILLICOTHE, Ohio — Chillicothe residents can put their rakes on a schedule: the city has set its 2026 fall leaf collection dates, with crews collecting leaves street by street on the same day as each household’s regular trash pickup, starting the week of November 2, according to the City of Chillicothe as reported by the Scioto Valley Guardian.
Collection follows the trash calendar. Households on the Monday and Thursday trash routes will have leaves collected from November 2 through November 6, the city said. Those on the Tuesday and Friday routes follow from November 9 through November 13, and the Wednesday route closes the schedule from November 16 through November 20.
Residents who would rather haul their own yard waste can use the city’s Yard Waste Site off Renick Avenue, which the city said is open Wednesdays and Saturdays from 8 a.m. to noon. The site also accepts branches and grass clippings.
The rotating schedule spreads the work across three weeks so crews can cover every route once, timed to the heart of leaf fall across Ross County. City officials announced the dates in a social media post laying out the route-by-route plan, the Scioto Valley Guardian reported.
Because collection rides along with the trash schedule, residents do not need to sign up or call ahead for the curbside rounds — the leaf crew simply follows the route on its assigned week. That structure also means a household’s one collection week depends entirely on which trash route it sits on, so checking the route dates before raking is the difference between a clean curb and a pile that sits until the drop-off run.
Anyone who needs a pickup scheduled can call 740-773-9715, according to the city.
The three-week run also gives residents who miss their route week a fallback: the Renick Avenue yard waste site stays on its regular Wednesday and Saturday morning hours throughout the collection period, so a missed Monday can still end with the leaves off the lawn by the weekend.
What happens next: the first routes — Monday and Thursday households — should have leaves ready at the curb when collection opens the week of November 2, with the remaining routes following in order through November 20.
Photo: Bigmouth1, CC BY-SA