“When it comes to recycling a tree there’s chemical compounds that the tree makes up as it composts,” says Andrew Tortora from Walters Recycling and Refuse in Blaine. “We want to insure that we’re putting the tree through the right life cycle process and the best way to do that is to end up mulching it.” Holiday “free time” gives way to “tree time” in early January at Walters. Their fleet is on the street collecting Christmas trees.
“CLEAN AND GREEN”
Recycling your tree has many benefits. In recycling jargon, clean and green is good – especially if you’re in the tree pickup business.
“The green cycle is what we like to say,” Tortora said. “We like to take what we call clean Christmas trees. A clean Christmas tree has no flocking on it, no tinsel, no ornaments and no lights. If those have that, they are going to be ending up in landfill, which is not where we want real Christmas trees to end up.”
Recycling your Christmas tree is part of the waste not, want not m.o. that Walters wants residents to adhere to.
Said Tortora: “The closer that we can get to reusing and recycling the most amount of products out of our recycle center in our facility, the better.”
Walters will pick up Christmas trees for free in Blaine for the first two week in January. After that the company will collect trees for a small cost
