It’s the most wonderful post-Christmas Day post of the year.
The City of Houston’s Solid Waste Management Department (SWMD) and Houston Parks and Recreation Department invite residents to recycle their live Christmas trees and contribute to a greener holiday season. By participating, you can help reduce landfill waste while creating valuable mulch and other landscaping materials.
From Wednesday, December 26, 2024, through Friday, January 24, 2025, SWMD will operate 22 convenient tree recycling drop-off locations throughout Houston. A detailed list of sites is attached for reference. Additionally, live trees can be recycled through the city’s curbside tree waste collection program.
To prepare a tree for recycling:
– Remove all lights, ornaments, tinsel, wire, nails, and stands.
– Ensure the tree is not flocked, painted, or artificial, as these cannot be recycled.SAVE THE DATE: 34th Annual Treecycling Event
Celebrate sustainability with City officials, Reliant Energy, Living Earth, and the Houston Parks & Recreation Department as we give the City Tree a second life as mulch for parks and green spaces.Date: Tuesday, January 7, 2025
Time: 10:00 a.m.
Location: City Hall Reflection Pool
The press release includes a link to this Google map of those 22 locations, which include stalwarts like Westpark and North Main, two locations in Memorial Park, and a few outside the city in places like Richmond, the Woodlands, and New Caney. There’s someplace that close enough to you, so find it and haul that tree over when it’s time. And as an extra added bonus, here’s where to dispose of your tree in San Antonio. You’re welcome.
On a side note, when I searched my archives for previous “Christmas tree” posts, I found this story from 2018 about Amazon getting into the Christmas tree delivery business and how this was a potential threat to Christmas tree farms. That service still exists, but with one exception from 2019, all of the stories I found in a Google News search on the topic were from the debut year. So if it’s had some measurable effect on the previous business model, it’s not been enough for it to be newsworthy, for whatever that’s worth.