Leave it to always eco-progressive, compost-crazy San Francisco to take the cake when it comes to post-holiday recycling initiatives.

 

Last year, through the city’s curbside “treecycling” program, around 500 tons of Christmas trees were saved from landfills and recycled. Once collected, the trees were sent through a chipper and most of the resulting mulch was used around city parks. According to the San Francisco Chronicle, this years’ discarded pines, firs, and the like that are picked up curbside by special trucks will be also sent through a chipper; but the mulch will then be sent to a special waste-to-energy facility where it will be used as fuel.

 

Turns out, curbside Christmas tree haul-and-chip services are nothing new in the zero-waste aspiring City by the Bay. For the last 23 years, the city has held a chip-a-thon in front of City Hall to demonstrate that, yep, Christmas trees can be recycled. Thanks to San Francisco’s admirable (some would say radical) recycling and composting programs, about 70 percent of the city’s waste is currently diverted from landfills.

 

San Francisco’s Christmas tree recycling program runs through January 15th. Discarded trees put out on regularly scheduled trash pick-up days will be collected. Does your city have a Christmas tree recycling program? If not, how do you dispose of it? 

 

Via [San Francisco Chronicle]