Re-Using Cut Christmas Trees

If you've opted for a cut Christmas tree rather than a living tree that you can plant later, at least consider  alternatives to letting it end up at the local landfill.  For instance, here's some recycling information that bird watchers will appreciate.

You can put your cut Christmas trees out in the backyard after the holidays are over, to provide shelter for wild birds.  Recycling Christmas trees in this manner is just one of many ways that you can use plants to attract wild birds.  Draw even more wild birds by hanging suet on the Christmas trees, or pine cones smeared with peanut butter and rolled in birdseed.

For non-birdwatchers, another piece of recycling information pertaining to cut Christmas trees may be more useful.  Saw off the branches, then saw the trunk up into smaller parts.  Use this material as "flooring" with which to line the bottom of your compost bin.  With the superior aeration such flooring will provide, your compost will break down faster.

And lastly, if neither of the above appeals to you, many municipalities offer Christmas tree recycling dump sites.  In some municipalities, such as St. Peters, these discarded Christmas trees are ground up into bark mulch which is then available to residents to use as mulch in their yards.

Submitted by Jennifer Jones, World Bird Sanctuary Volunteer