Branches on Branch Avenue (zone 2 in the new collection system) are stacked curbside for pickup next Tuesday. (Photo by Brian Donohue. Click to enlarge.)
By BRIAN DONOHUE
Grab a rake, Red Bankers.
The Borough of Red Bank resumes monthly curbside brush collection next week, making this week and weekend go time for gathering up the sticks, branches, and vegetation-related jetsam that have littered your yard over the winter. (You get extra points from the Red Bank Environmental Commission – and your neighbors – if you don’t use a gas leaf blower. )
Be aware, though: the old east side/west side pickup schedule that has been in place for years has been replaced by one that divides the town into five zones, with different pickup days depending on which zone you’re in. Pickup in all zones begins next week.
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Brush Collection takes place during the second week of each month, from April through October, based on your assigned zone. Each zone is assigned one specific day per month.
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Leaf Collection will follow the same zone-based approach, taking place during the second week of the month from November through December.
Pickups will begin in zone one Monday; zone two Tuesday; three on Wednesday, and so forth.
Complete details are available on the Department of Public Utilities 2025 Bulletin available here.
Borough ordinance prohibits brush from being placed more than seven days before a scheduled pickup.
Here’s a map of the zones below from the Borough website and here’s a link to a pdf of the map and a list of streets in each zone.
The new system caught at least one would-be raker off guard and sparked a realization that she’d better hustle it up this weekend.
Andrea Fallon of Mechanic Street was planning on cleaning her whole yard beginning April 10 and putting brush out for April 14, when pickup would have been scheduled for the east side under the old schedule.
And when she saw a neighbor piling brush at the curb, she warned him that he could be ticketed for putting brush out too far ahead of the pickup date.
But Fallon was working off a copy of the 2023 DPU Bulletin which listed a schedule putting east side pickup date on April 14.
When her neighbor alerted her to the new schedule, she realized she’d better get raking fast to make the new pickup date this coming Monday, April 7.
“Oh, no they’re coming here Monday,” she recalled thinking in a chat with redbankgreen.
She’s worried more of her neighbors won’t know about the new system and put piles out for the old date that will sit there for a weeks until the May pickup.
A short while after she spoke with us, an employee of the Department of Public Utilities hand delivered a copy of the new bulletin with the new schedule to her home.
redbankgreen editor Brian Donohue may be reached via email at [email protected] or by calling or texting 848-331-8331 or yelling his name loudly as he walks by. Do you value the news coverage provided by redbankgreen? Please become a financial supporter if you haven’t already. Click here to set your own level of monthly or annual contribution.
