Whether you’ve got a large, sprawling backyard or you live in a townhouse with a smaller lawn, your grass needs regular maintenance to keep it healthy and tidy. But mowing the lawns is hard, tiring work, especially after a long week (let’s face it - no one loves having their weekend filled up with chores!), and it’s one of those jobs that tends to the bottom of the to-do list.

Once you’ve mustered up the motivation to dust off the mower, figuring out what to do with your grass clippings is the next hurdle.

While many people pile theirs up in the corner of the yard, there are lots of smart, sustainable ways to make use of your grass trimmings that benefit your lawn, garden and the environment.

From grasscycling, composting, mulching and making feed for chickens to using a responsible disposal service – don’t let that green gold go to waste!

Read on for six eco-friendly uses for your grass cuttings.

Short on time and need help dealing with your grass clippings? No problem. At Ezy Peazy, we’re experts in taking care of the hard stuff. Post a task on our user-friendly platform and get help with a huge range of affordable gardening services, including hassle-free green waste disposal.

Solution #1: Leave your grass clippings on the lawn

Did you know you can simply dump grass clippings out on your lawn? Rather than being a ‘lazy’ option, this super simple solution is both time-efficient and cost-effective.

Called ‘grassycyling’ – leaving grass clippings on your lawn after mowing is a great way to save on fertiliser and give your yard a natural boost. Grass clippings break down incredibly quickly, returning valuable nutrients like nitrogen back into your soil. No bagging, no raking, no carting your clippings away.

Here’s a few ways you can get the most out of grasscycling:

• Use a mulching mower. This helps to chop grass clippings up into finer pieces, speeding the process of decomposition up
• Mow when dry. Sodden yard clippings will clump together and take longer to break down
• Mow regularly. If your lawn is super long, you’ll end up with a thicker layer of clippings. This can lead to clumping and will block out precious sunlight which your grass needs for photosynthesis. If you do need to mow your lawn when it's long – set your blade height so you’re only trimming the top third at a time. 

Solution #2: Add your grass clippings to your compost

If you’re an avid composter, you’ll likely know all about brown waste and green waste and how important it is to balance the two.

If you’re not a composter – now is a great time to get started! Not only does having a compost bin, pile or pit help to reduce the amount of rubbish your household produces, but it also takes vital pressure off our landfills. When organic matter is buried in the ground at a landfill it produces methane – a harmful greenhouse gas. Composting helps to mitigate this. By composting, you’re doing your bit for the environment.

Grass clippings are an excellent source of green waste (recently growing plant materia). It’s nitrogen-rich, moist, and breaks down rapidly, providing a source of fuel for microorganisms to thrive. This is great when it comes to your compost – helping to keep all the necessary natural processes moving along. However, it’s important to balance your green waste with carbon rich brown waste – things like dry leaves, branches, cardboard, egg cartons, and paper.

Brown waste is usually bulkier and breaks down more slowly, encouraging airflow and ensuring the rest of your compost pile doesn’t become a smelly, rotten, soggy mess.

After a few months of composting lawn clippings, you’ll have beautiful, nutrient-rich food for your garden!

Solution #3: Use your grass clippings for mulch

Grass mulch is an excellent addition to your garden, flower beds, and veggie patches, helping to retain moisture by slowing down evaporation, keeping weeds from sprouting, and enriching the soil with nutrients. Creating grass mulch is easy. All you need is a mower with a catcher that enables collecting grass clippings or a rake to gather everything up. Even better if you have a mulching mower! 

To get the most out of your lawn clipping mulch, here are a few handy tips:

• Let your clippings dry first. Fresh clippings can clump together, creating a slimy mess. For the best results, spread them out to dry for a day before adding them to your garden
• Apply in thin layers. A 2-3cm thick layer of lawn clippings is thin enough to allow room for air circulation. Try to avoid laying it on thick! This can lead to mould growth and rot
• Combine your grass with other organic materials. Adding leaves, star,w, and wood chips will create a more balanced mulch and better airflow than grass alone
• Avoid stems and trunks. When adding grass clippings to the garden, don’t pile them right up against plant stems or tree trunks, and try to avoid smothering any plants. This can cause your precious plants to rot
• Don’t use grass treated with herbicides or pesticides. The chemicals in these products can be harmful to your garden. And you definitely want to keep them out of your vegetable patch!
• Avoid using grass that includes weeds with seeds. Adding weeds with seeds to your garden is a surefire way to encourage them to take root exactly where you don’t want them
• Know which plants don’t like mulch! If you’re wondering whether grass clippings are good for vegetable gardens, the answer is a little complicated and depends on the veggies in question! Adding grass clipping mulch to carrots, beets, potatoes, onions, garlic, and other root vegetables can add too much nitrogen to the soil, causing more leaves than roots to grow. Succulents, cacti, and woody herbs, like rosemary and thyme, prefer drier, well-draining soil. Grass mulch is great for keeping moisture in your soil, but for these dry-condition-loving plants, it can lead to root rot.

Solution #4: Create a feed for chickens and other animals

Lots of herbivorous animals love grass clippings. Whether you have a few backyard chickens, pet rabbits, live rurally or have a working farm, lawn clippings can be a nutritious and cost-effective supplement for your animals.

And providing lawn clippings for animals like chickens promotes natural pecking and grazing behaviour, supporting their overall wellbeing.

However, there are a few important factors to keep in mind to ensure you’re providing a snack that’s both tasty and healthy.

• Use recently mown grass and avoid clippings that have been treated. Pesticides, herbicides, and fertilisers can be toxic to animals, and old, mouldy clippings can cause stomach upsets
• Dry the clippings for better digestion. Fresh clippings can clump together, causing fermentation and mould growth which can lead to bloating and stomach upsets (bloating can be particularly dangerous in livestock). Drying grass clippings in the sun first ensures you keep sensitive tummies happy
• Only use as a supplement. Like humans, animals benefit from a balanced diet. Grass clippings should be a snack, not a main source of food.

Solution #5: Use a green waste bin for responsible disposal

If none of the previous solutions are the right fit for you, or you have a large volume of grass cuttings to deal with and need a way to get rid of the excess, using a green waste bin can be a great way to ensure you’re disposing of them responsibly.

You might be wondering where to dump grass clippings – and while this may seem harmless, it’s actually detrimental for the environment. Not only does dumping grass clippings contribute to runoff that pollutes waterways (this is due to the release of excess nitrogen, which encourages harmful algae blooms and depletes levels of oxygen in the water), but when you dump grass clippings in a landfill, it adds to methane emissions – a powerful greenhouse gas. And dumping on public land, such as roadsides or reserves? Well, that’s illegal and could land you with a hefty fine.

While it’ll cost you a little bit, options like using a green waste removal service or a garden waste skip bin are much kinder to the planet. And depending on where in the country you live, there will be a range of different options available – commercial and council-run.

While New Zealand’s largest city council, Auckland Council, doesn’t offer a green waste collection service, others, such as Tauranga City Council and Christchurch City Council, do.

Solution #6: Book a hassle-free grass disposal job with Ezy Peazy!

Don’t have a council-run green bin service in your area? Looking for an affordable, hassle-free solution? Ezy Peazy has you covered!

We get it – often you only need a one-off or ad-hoc green waste collection, making signing up to a green bin subscription service an unnecessary expense. You also may not be producing a large enough volume of green waste on a regular basis to justify ordering a green bin in the first place. 

That’s where we come in.  

With Ezy Peazy, affordable, convenient grass cuttings disposal is just a few clicks away. Thanks to our extensive network of professional taskers up and down the country, skilled in all manner of gardening services, it’s easy to get help from reliable locals near you.

With Ezy Peazy, you set the scope of the job. Need someone to mow your lawn and then take the grass clippings away? Sorted! Already have a pile of grass clippings taking up space in your yard and need someone to process them into mulch and add them to your vegetable garden? No worries! Whatever it is, with Ezy Peazy, there’s someone ready to help.

Listing a task is simple – and it’s free. All you need to do is describe the service you require, including your location, preferred cost, and timeframe, then wait for offers to roll in. Select the one that suits you and sit back and relax while your trusted tasker takes care of the hard work.  Better yet, we secure your payment and don’t release it until you’re 100% happy with the job.

Love the work your tasker did? Awesome! With Ezy Peazy, you can book them to come back and help you again or on an ongoing basis.

What are you waiting for? Collect an affordable garden waste collection with Ezy Peazy today!

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What to do with grass clippings: key takeaways

From grasscycling, composting grass clippings, creating grass mulch and feed for animals to booking a green waste bin or a lawn clipping disposal service with Ezy Peazy - dealing with your grass cuttings needn’t be a hassle!

While the best way to get rid of grass clippings will depend on your unique situation, one thing’s for sure: Ezy Peazy will make it a breeze.

About Ezy Peazy

Ezy Peazy is an innovative, user-friendly platform connecting Kiwis with highly-rated taskers to help get all sorts of jobs done. Founded in 2019, we’ve built a wide network of skilled, reliable professionals across New Zealand.

From furniture removal and piano moving to general home maintenance – and even helping hang precious artwork - Ezy Peazy makes it convenient, simple, and safe to find reliable help for virtually any task you can think of. With transparent reviews, competitive pricing, and a user-friendly experience, Ezy Peazy is transforming the way tasks are completed.