The City of Knoxville's annual "Leaf Season" is well underway and that means that regular bi-weekly yard waste collection will be on hold until February 1st. The leaf collection season begins Nov. 1, and concludes Feb. 1, of each year. During this period, the normal two-week brush schedule is suspended and all Public Service Department resources concentrate on collecting leaves throughout the community. Public Service Department crews will visit your neighborhood several times during this period to vacuum loose leaves raked to the street for pick up. Leaf Season is the busiest period of the year for crews, who picked up 7,312 tons, or more than 14.6 million pounds of leaves, from Knoxville's neighborhoods last year. "That's about 25 percent of our yearly total of yard waste," said David Brace, the city's public service director. Most of the leaves will be collected by Christmas though pickup will continue into the early part of 2008. Residents can call 311 to get an approximate date when crews will be in their neighborhoods. The weekly schedules are designed by the managers of each of the city's six service areas based on past experience, tree age and type, current weather conditions and this summer's drought. The city uses trucks equipped with suction devices to pick up leaves and they need to be raked to within five feet of the curb for pickup. Please don't rake leaves into the street and try not to block drainage ditches if possible. Also please don't mix brush collections with leaf piles because the leaf collection equipment is only designed to pick up leaves. Brush will damage it and the city will not pick up mixed piles of brush, or other refuse, and leaves. If residents bag leaves Waste Connections - the city's contractor for trash collection - will take up to five bags of leaves with normal trash pickup. Brush collection does continue from November thru January, but it will be done on a limited basis. Brace encourages people not to cut brush this time of year. But if a resident has to cut brush they can call 311 to report there is brush that needs to be picked up and the city will get to it as soon as it can.