As the holiday season ends, many people will need to throw away their Christmas trees, and according to Waste Management, there’s a proper way to do so.
Pismo Beach resident Brian Metcalf took his tree down the day after Christmas.
“Seems kind of sad but we always take our tree down pretty soon after Christmas and cut it up and put it in the green bin. I just use my big loppers and chop it up. It’s pretty easy,” Metcalf said.
While some prefer to decorate their homes with real Christmas trees, others prefer artificial ones. Bakersfield resident Tyler Nichols said he grew up with real Christmas trees but decided to switch to artificial after a bad experience with a real tree one year.
“When we left the place where we had got it, they had forgotten to cut the bottom off, so it only lasted a few days. After that, we decided to switch to a fake Christmas tree and that was that,” Nichols said.
When it comes to recycling your real Christmas tree, remove all ornaments and decorations, cut the tree into four-foot pieces or shorter, and place it into your green compost bin with the lid closed.
“Typically, we want it in the bin because most of the collection vehicles are semi-automated or automated and we don’t want the drivers having to get in and out of the truck,” explained Peter Kron, Integrated Waste Management Authority (IWMA) Executive Director.
There are several things to take into consideration before throwing out your real Christmas tree in the green compost bin.
“We can’t have stands. We can’t have ornaments. We can’t have tinsel. We can’t have flocked trees and any of those fire retardants that are sprayed on trees and definitely no artificial trees,” Kron said.
Once your Christmas tree is collected, you may be wondering where it goes next.
“Those green materials, we try to take them and compost them and make them into soil that we can actually use in our farms. The more you can do to prevent plastics or any other contamination from getting into the bins, the better off you are,” Kron said.
For more information on garbage pickup of your Christmas trees click here.
