If it's plain fertilizer with no pesticides or herbicides, there's no reason to worry. From what I understand, even if it had pesticides or herbicides, what hadn't already broken down would break down during composting.

If a green thick lawn is what you are after you can use alfalfa meal/pellets on your lawn and get IMO much better results. Be warned that your grass will take on a life of its ownÂ

Google: Dchall lawn

Blutranes

How are alfalfa meal pellets broadcast, will they go through a spreader or just thrown manually.

The hole on my spreader wouldn't let them through, so they were spread by hand; that is, when I used to do that. I then moved to spraying alfalfa tea mixed with compost tea with very good results. However, I haven't did this in several years, the grass grew too thick and too fast. I still enjoy a beautiful lawn after skipping several years, and the growth has become acceptable. It does take about a month before one will start seeing results...

Blutranes

rich_manure
I agree with you mentality about fertilizing the yard and using the clippings for the garden. I used to do that when i fertilized with milorganite. I figured I wanted one step betweween the milorganite and my garden. The growing grass could help filter out bad things and the nutreints in the clippings could carry over to the gareden. I have since switched to alfalfa.

I don't think chemical fertilizers are considered bad if you apply sparingly. Too strong at once kills microorganisms and the runoff is bad for environment. But as long as it's not so strong that it burns the grass, the grass doesn't know the difference. I think the clippings wil have the same nutritional value once they have been mowed/collected.

I can't afford alfalfa pellets in the quantity needed to be appplied "full strength", but I applied 150 lbs to my yard this spring. I love it. My wheel barrow would hold 100 lbs nicely and I would wheel it a few feet and fling handfulls at the yard and repeat until I had what I called good coverage. That's what is great about natural ferts like alfalfa. You can put it down when you have time with no worries. I put it down right at the start of the drought and had no worries. I don't water my yard. I also found that spreading out other peoples leaves on the yard before mowing is another good way to add value to my soil. Don't collect it when you do that, and you will have better grass later. Or spread it out thin before mowing and collect it. Pre-mixed/shredded leaves and grass for the garden.

Why not leave the clippings on the lawn and put a bag of alfalfa pellets in your pile? Way less work, for one thing.