When you brought your fresh-cut Christmas tree home, its unadorned evergreen limbs were filled with promise.
You decked its boughs with tinsel and ornaments, from those plain colored balls to the ones your kids made by hand. And it sparkled through the holiday.
But now its needles are falling off, it's turning brown, and it's in the way. You want to get rid of it, but that tree is not trash. There are several ways to reuse or recycle it, from the simple to the creative.
City residents have two options. Through the end of January, you can leave your tree on the curb on designated refuse and recycling pick-up days or take them to a drop-off site. Either way, the timber will be turned into mulch.
Other communities offer a mix of pick-up or drop-off options for tree recycling. The county maintains a list of the options in all towns and villages, which can be found by clicking here. Anyone in Monroe County also can drop off their trees at the ecopark recycling center at 10 Avion Drive in Chili, where the conifers will be mulched.
But there are some creative ways to reuse the evergreens, as well. If you have a yard, one classic way is to use it in a brush pile for birds to hang out in. If you really want to draw in your feathered friends, you can hang suet, berries, orange slices and other things from the branches for animals to snack on.
The trees also can be used in a lot of craft projects, as can the needles. The Old Farmer's Almanac suggests sewing scraps of fabric together and filling them with needles to make sachets for freshening drawers.
According to the state Department of Environmental Conservation, some farms will take softwoods for their goats to eat, since the needles are rich in vitamin C.
Those are just some of the many options for dealing with natural Christmas trees.
As for artificial trees that have lost their twinkle, you'll need to bring those to ecopark on Wednesday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Beyond the metal and synthetic materials, many artificial trees also have lights and electronic components — and these are all things that should be kept out of landfills.
