Sunday, December 27, 2009

Recycling Christmas Trees and Greenery

Green Holiday Action #27

Pine boughs and yard greenery have been decorating the house inside and out for the past couple of weeks. (Green Holiday Decorations)

Today I got in the mood to take some of it down.
But I'm still using some of these branches because now they are providing mulch on areas of the hillside that have bare earth. Smaller branches went into our household green bin provided by the city. This green matter will be chipped and composted by the city.

Our live tree went back out into the yard. But if you have a cut holiday tree, you can still make green choices. If at all possible, don't send your tree to a landfill.

In Los Angeles, you can cut up your tree and put it in your green bin for vegetation. You can also recycle the whole tree by taking it to a number of drop-off locations at parks and fire stations throughout the city. For a location near you, check out the L.A. City Bureau of Sanitation website. The designated locations
in L.A. will only be recycling whole trees next weekend, Jan. 2-3, 2010. Follow the directions on the city website for how to prepare the tree for recycling.

If you live outside of the Los Angeles area do a web search with key words "recycling Christmas trees" and your city name. Many cities offer some way for you to recycle holiday trees.

1 comment:

Douglas E. Welch said...

I am so glad to see some action by the city on the "Christmas Tree" problem. In years past, people simply dumped trees on their lawns and curbs, where they seemed to site for months. I am very glad to see that these will not be picked up in a timely manner.

This year, too, I wish we still had our pickup truck. If I did I was planning on driving around and picking up as many trees as I could to run through our big chipper/shredder for enough mulch for the entire garden. Looks like I will have to make do with just our own prunings now, though.

I will be passing along the City of LA Information to my blog and newsletter readers in my next newsletter. This is something everyone should know about.