How to Skip Raking & Leave the Leaves in Your Yard
You can use leaves to improve your lawn and decrease the use of harmful fertilizers. Choose any of the following ways to skip raking and bagging leaves:

Mow over your leaves and feed your lawn.
Mow over your leaves in your yard without a mower bag, and let nature turn the leaves into lawn nutrients without harmful chemicals. Mow with one or more passes (if leaves are thick, you may need to spread them out first). The mower chops up the dried leaves and grass clippings and deposits them back into the turf.

This saves time, feeds your lawn, eliminates the need to rake and bag leaves, improves your soil health, and supports microorganisms that live in the soil.

Make mulch and use leaves to feed landscaping, gardens, and trees.
Mow your lawn with the mower bag attached, and use partially-shredded leaves as mulch around gardens and landscaped areas to decompose over winter. Or, rake a light layer around the base of trees. Some species of butterflies and moths overwinter as eggs, pupae, or adults in leaf litter.

Recycle leaves by adding them to compost.
Compost, a rich soil product made up of decomposed organic matter like yard waste and kitchen scraps, improves the soil quality of gardens, lawns, trees, plants, and shrubs.

Why does Coralville pick up bagged leaves, instead of a leaf vacuum?

• The environment: Fewer leaves wind up in the gutter when they are contained in yard waste bags or yard waste cans. Loose leaves piled at the curb can blow back into yards, requiring re-raking—or worse yet, can clog storm drains, which blocks stormwater runoff and carries lawn pollutants into waterways. 
• Reliability: City yard waste picks up bagged or canned leaves on trash day each week. This gives residents multiple chances to get rid of leaves throughout the fall. Vacuum trucks operate with just a few passes through each neighborhood during the fall. Access can be limited by parked cars, and collection can be delayed by weather or mechanical problems. 
• Safety: Leaves that blow into the gutter can be dangerous to bicyclists and motorcyclists. Leaves in the street can hide potential hazards, cause cyclists to swerve into traffic, and can become slippery.