Dundee Township accepts used Christmas trees for recycling

The end of the Christmas holidays is not depressing for everyone. Workers at the Dundee Township Highway Department have a few good laughs watching how and when people bring to them their fresh-cut Christmas trees to be recycled.

“They come in cars, on top of cars, and behind cars,” said highway commissioner Larry Braasch. “It's funny seeing how people bring them here.”

Not wanting the dried, brown needles in their cars, some residents will tie one end of a rope to the holiday centerpiece and the other end to their rear bumpers. By the time they arrive at the Route 72 and Sleepy Hollow Road highway garage, most of the needles have fallen off and many of the branches have bent from being dragged for miles.

Nonetheless, the employees welcome the trees as long as they are not still decorated or have any wires in them. The balsam and Fraser fires and pines are chipped and used on walking paths in area parks and township open space sites.

Only trees, and not wreaths, are accepted. Wreaths have wires and metal frames that will damage the department's chipper.

“This recycling program does more good for the environment than having a waste hauler collect them and put them in a landfill where they will take years to break down,” Braasch said.

The Dundee Township Highway Department has been running the recycling program for more than a decade. Its annual rate of participations usually tells Braasch the popularity of fresh-cut and artificial trees at Christmas.

“We have been averaging about 400 trees a season. A couple years ago, we received 800 trees,” he said.

Residents drop off most of them during the first half of January when the program is in full swing. Some wait four or five months to bring them to the highway garage.

“There are always a few people who undecorate their trees and throw them in the backyard. The snow falls on them and buries them until it melts,” he said. “By that time, they are all brown and don't look like Christmas trees at all. We'll still take them though.”

Every tree that is placed on the pile behind the highway garage is one fewer tree put in a landfill or thrown along the road where highway workers pick up them up for months after Christmas, he said.

“We usually pick up about 30 to 40 (fresh-cut evergreen) trees that people just throw by the road,” he said. “I can't figure that out; this service is free, and the highway garage is pretty centrally located.”