Now that the holidays are over, the decorations are starting to come down and many of you may be wondering how to deal with your holiday tree. We've begun to notice trees appearing in odd locations in our neighborhood, and thought perhaps we ought to share some information about recycling your tree in the DC area...
Washington DC: Residents whose trash is collected by the Dept of Public Works may place holiday trees and other greenery in curbside tree boxes through January 11th for collection. Trees not collected by January 17th can be placed with regular trash and will be collected on a space available basis. Residents can also choose to bring their trees to the Fort Totten Transfer Station for free chipping service weekdays 1pm to 5pm and Saturdays 8am to 3pm. Trees collected before January 17th will be added to the free compost mix the city makes available to residents in the spring.
Montgomery County MD: Residents can place trees with their recycling through January 30th. Trees must be on the curb by 7am and cannot be in plastic bags. Trees are composted or chipped for mulch, and "live" trees with root balls cannot be recycled through this program. After January 30th, trees must be cut into smaller pieces in order to be recycled through the regular curbside yard collection.
Prince George's County MD: Residents with yard waste collection service can place trees out on their regularly scheduled collection day through January 15th; trees must be curbside by 6:30am. Residents can also bring trees to the Western Branch Recycling Facility or the Brown Station Road Convenience Center through January 31st. Trees are shredded and cured into mulch.
Arlington County VA: Residents with curbside refuse and recycling collection can place trees out on their regular recycling collection day through January 16th; unbagged trees must be curbside by 6am. After January 16th, holiday trees can be put out with regular trash. Trees collected by January 16th will be ground into mulch.
City of Alexandria VA: Residents who receive city trash service can place their unbagged tree at the curb (not in alleys) by 7am on January 10th or January 17th. Collected trees will be recycled and chipped into mulch for distribution to residents; trees set out after January 17th will not be recycled.
All trees and greenery set out for recycling in any of the above areas must be completely undecorated in order to prevent damage to the chippers and to maintain the integrity of the mulch.
© 2009 Apartment Therapy
Holiday tree? How very, very, very PC.
view ChrisToronto's profile
What free compost mix are you talking about? The pile hidden down in SE, or is there another program I don't know about?
view ppolischuk's profile
So as a condo dweller, my trash is not collected by the DPW. Can I still place my tree outside in a treebox for collection?
view gswiszcza's profile
Along the Gulf Coast (more specifically the Houston area), the cities are wanting all Christmas trees due to the damage the hurricanes inflicted on the coast. Evidentally the sand dunes can be rebuilt with Christmas trees and 1,000 Christmas trees rebuild roughly 1 mile of sand dunes.
I'm unsure of the recycling locations in the Houston area/Texas Gulf Coast area that are accepting trees for this purpose.
I overheard this on the news or a commercial last weekend when I was in Houston assisting my father with organizing and revamping his "master" closet.
view kambykitten's profile
what's a holiday tree? that looks like a christmas tree to me.
view fardaesm's profile
In my house it is also a Christmas tree, but I'm friends with a bunch of folks who don't celebrate Christmas and yet still decorate trees with secular ornaments. They call their trees holiday trees so there you are...
ppolischuk: I believe the mulch is distributed from a location in SE, but haven't been able to find any additional current information.
gswiszcza: I believe your condo association is supposed to make arrangements for your Christmas trees.
Colleen
view CQ in DC's profile
I wish my neighbors would dispose of their trees properly like I myself did. Each corner is littered with abandoned trees and it's starting to look trashy. One person even left a string of lights on.
view allijean's profile
It is a Christmas tree. If you'd only done it in post-its like the blog said...
I'm very, very surprised that almost a whole month of AT was plastered with ways to do this and that for Christmas and now we're just DONE! Dispose of it, we're done! Well, not surprised, but that's generally how I feel about this sudden halt in all this overtaken month of stuff to figure out how to jam in your house, and now you have called it a HOLIDAY tree. It wasn't Flag Day. We don't make all the fuss about Generic Pine Tree In Your House Celebration in September. There was a day about 2 weeks ago, and I forget what it's called, but right after that, the people don't like to keep trees in their house anymore.
Yeah, just like Christmas, I can't quite be subtle. I decided to put up a tree because someone had the audacity to label this a murder and so I went to the lot and fulfilled the Christmas destiny of one tree, and hosted it in my home for the past 3 and a half weeks. I decorated it December 26th. It's still up so far. I didn't get all my presents yet.
view K T G's profile