Recycling program gives Christmas trees new life

The ornaments are stored away. The tinsel, garland and beads are gone.

All that's left is your lonely, bare Christmas tree.

Sure, you could throw it in the trash, burn it, or even grind it into wood chips.

Or you could give it a second life by bringing it to Northern Harrier Lake this Saturday, Jan. 10, at Pratt's Wayne Woods Forest Preserve in Wayne.

Don LaBrose, the forest preserve district's fisheries biologist, will lead a team of volunteers who will collect old Christmas trees to turn into underwater structures called fish cribs. These will help the developing ecosystem in the lake, which is less than four years old and was formerly a quarry, LaBrose said.

"Typically these little quarries don't have a lot of structure on the bottom (of the lake)," LaBrose said. "The trees help to fertilize the lake and provide a food source for algae and life at the bottom of the food chain, so insects can feed on them, other wildlife can feed on the insects and so forth."

Fish also can hide among the trees' needles for either safety or ambush during hunting. LaBrose said some fish, such as yellow perch, also use the trees as a spawning habitat.

The forest preserve has been recycling trees at various lakes since the late 1980s, and it always has been a success. Since recycling began at Northern Harrier Lake, birds and turtles have moved in and some aquatic plant species are growing.

The trees will break down after three to five years, but that's good news. Not only will it allow local residents more opportunities to recycle their Christmas trees, but the trees continue contributing to the ecosystem as food and sediment during deterioration, LaBrose said.

To donate your natural Christmas tree, bring it to the lake with all tinsel and decorations removed. For details, visit dupageforest.com.