Old Christmas trees help other trees grow year-round in Parisian neighborhood parks
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
After all the festivities of Christmas are done and dusted comes the question as to what to do with the Christmas tree around with so many of the festivities have taken place. 
Every year since 2007, the City of Paris has been running a program under which it opens up tree collection points at 95 parks and gardens throughout the city, according to the entrepreneurial news portal Springwise:
<<Consumers need only bring their trees to the collection spot nearest them. From there, the tree will be crushed and used to enrich the soil in local parks, serving to restrict weeds and reduce evaporation. This is Paris's fourth year of recycling Christmas trees in this way, and the program is growing rapidly. From 15,000 trees recycled in 2007-2008, the number grew to 27,150 in 2009-2010.>>
This way, as Springwise points out, the benefits of recycling stay in the local community – and are very visible. When spring comes, Parisians can stroll back to the local park where they donated their Christmas tree, and know that they have done their part to keep it green and beautiful.
This here, once again, shows that the real tree is much better than the fake one when it comes to being eco friendly as it can be recycled in a way that allows other trees and plants to grown and thrive even though that the decaying mulch will, in fact, release the CO2 the tree has absorbed during its life. Unfortunately this method is not CHG neutral as would be the burning of such trees, as is done in some other municipalities, for heating homes.
Real trees, however, will beat fake ones any day and that for more than just the reason of being capable of being recycled in an environmentally friendly manner.
When I was a child we used to collect Christmas trees in the neighborhoods from folks and burn them for heat. But not before we had cut out the bit of the tree that could be made into things that could be sold on markets, such as wooden whisks.
Recycling of Christmas trees should be an integral part of the waste management strategy of every municipality, of every borough, and I am sure that some folks might be prepared to do it for them, who could also salvage parts of the tree from which to make such aforementioned whisks, for instance.
© 2010
