City offers Christmas tree recycling
Now that Christmas is over, city officials hope residents will think twice about tossing their trees to the curb.
The city has been recycling live trees for years with the intent of grinding and using them as mulch in future planting projects and are encouraging the practice again this year. They have set up three collection sites at Boyd Christian School, Three Star Mall and the Civic Center, which will be open for the next few weeks.
McMinnville’s Department of Urban Forestry will be working with the city’s Public Works Department or with volunteers from Boyd Christian School. Last year, 140 trees were recycled, J.J. Hillis of urban forestry said.
While city officials are urging recycling of live, natural evergreen trees, there are a few types of trees that cannot be accepted. The city will take ball and burlap trees and live cut trees only, as fake trees cannot be recycled.
Additionally, trees covered with sprayed on fake snow cannot be accepted.
“If that’s sprayed on, we can’t take them because we use the trees in our mulching to beautify the city,” Hillis said. “We ask that all ornaments, metal stands or anything like that be removed.”
Fake wreaths are also problematic.
“A big problem that we’ve been having is with the wreaths,” Hillis added. “We don’t have any problems with the all natural wreaths, but if we have ones made with metal or tied with any kind of fishing line, that causes problems with us.”
The city will be accepting trees at the three collection sites until Jan. 20.
Recycling sites
Christmas trees can be brought to Boyd Christian School, Three Star Mall and the Civic Center.