Public works employees will be making the rounds starting next Monday, gathering up Christmas trees St. Albert residents are ready to toss.
Running from Jan. 9 to 20, a separate collection vehicle will be making the rounds on designated waste pick-up days, hauling away natural Christmas trees and transporting them to the city’s compost yard, three kilometres west of St. Albert on Villeneuve Road.
“It won’t be our compost truck or our garbage truck. It’s a separate vehicle all together,” said Christian Benson, waste programs co-ordinator.
Residents looking to ditch their Christmas trees are asked to place their trees on their boulevards by 7 a.m. on their neighbourhoods’ designated waste collection days. All trees should be stripped of ornaments or any other form of decoration and put out as they are, with no wrapping or bag. No artificial trees will be accepted.
“Every year we see trees in garbage bags,” Benson said. “Keep them out of bags, take off the ornaments and it’s easy for our guys to pick them up.”
All trees will be taken to the compost yard. Once the city has collected a large volume of trees, it will bring in a grinder to turn them into chips. Those chips will be composted with the rest of the organic material left at the yard.
For households that hang onto their trees a few extra days, whether because of future celebrations such as Ukrainian Christmas or the desire to hang onto the magic of the holidays a little bit longer, residents can always drive them out to the compost yard themselves.
Residents thinking of composting their own trees might find it difficult to do in their backyards, Benson said.
“You won’t have normal decomposition in a backyard. You really have to chip it up into pieces, so you really don’t see a lot of backyard composting for trees.”
While Benson noted an increase in the number of artificial trees in St. Albert, he said many households still use natural trees and use the pick-up service annually.
“This is a good service people are able to use. If they can’t make it, our compost depot is always open.”
