Christmas trees can spread goodwill even after the season is over

It lights up your holiday, but what happens to your festive tree in January?

THEY HAVE taken pride of place in your living rooms for the past few weeks. Some of them wore lights, like shiny bracelets, or had tinsel around their necks with stars for crowns. We celebrated their arrival, and their presence brought joy, laughter and sparkly delight. Neighbours cooed and tickled them when they came to visit. We were so proud. Yet, no sooner was the last turkey sandwich eaten, than shivering Christmas trees, stripped naked of decorations, were taken from their homes, destined to spend the remainder of their existence outside, shrivelled and lonely.

Some will be reduced to covering a gap in a hedge or perhaps occupying a desolate corner of the backyard or, worse, dragged kicking and screaming to the dreaded shredder. The life of a Christmas tree is both glorious and tragic, brilliant yet short-lived. Depending on whom you believe, Ireland produces somewhere between 500,000 and one million Christmas trees per annum, with roughly half of these exported and the other half sold on the domestic market. Christmas trees are a completely biodegradable, meaning they decay naturally. Over the past decade, while we have been steadily getting better at providing facilities where Christmas trees can be recycled, we still have no coherent national policy for recycling our trees.

Neither Government nor environmental agencies can put a statistical figure on what percentage of our Christmas tree population is recycled every year. We know for instance that Dublin City Council collected about 25,000 trees last year, while Cork City Council amassed 57 tonnes of material. As for what they did with the trees once they were collected? Well, Christmas trees can have a varied and curious afterlife. For example, the majority of Christmas trees recycled in south Dublin end up fertilising the lawns and shrub patches of mainland Britain. The trees are taken on by Bord Na Móna, who turn them to mulch in one of their processing plants in Co Kildare.

Pat Fitzgerald from Bord Na Móna takes up the story: “When the trees are reduced, they look for all the world like a very light peat. You wouldn’t know the difference and we use this to dilute our peat. The UK has a strong policy in reducing the use of peat. So, whatever trees are collected in south Dublin find their way in compost bags to Britain.”

Cork City Council provides 13 locations where Christmas trees can be left for recycling. From these, they are brought to a central point, shredded and turned into compost, some of which is used in the city’s parks and green areas throughout the year. Others in Cork are attempting to get in on the Christmas tree recycling act too.

Patrick Hanna, of christmastreecollections.ie, is offering a service at €9.99 for which his company will call to remove your tree. This is the company’s first year in operation, and it hopes to go nationwide in the coming years. So what does Hanna and his company do with the trees they collect? “We take them and store then until they become mulch. This is used then for plants – it is useful for preventing frostbite in plants or for stopping weeds growing. Another option is that it can go into wood-chip burners and it is an eco friendly fuel.” Hanna says that Ireland has a way to go before catching up with more pioneering practices for used Christmas trees.

“In other countries, they have become more progressive than we are in that they may strip all the branches off and use the trunks in flood plains and in the protection of shrub lines and river beds.”

Green Party councillor Brian Meaney says the general sale, production and disposal of Christmas trees is too lightly regulated. “Go to any town in the country on weeks running up to Christmas you will see trees being sold. It’s a mainly cash business and appears to have built up more by tradition than direction,” says Meaney.

“Most municipal authorities have sites to dispose of trees, which turn them into a very useful product – very effective in weed control and providing nutrients for the ground.”

For others though, disposing of the Christmas tree is a far less scientific affair.

Many people will just dispose of trees casually, says Meaney. “There is perhaps no greater symbol of the fickleness of the Christmas spirit than a withering tree lying in the corner of a field once the next autumn comes around, with bits of tinsel and glitter still on it.”

Where to dump

South County Dublin: Various locations including Beechpark Open Space in Lucan, Glenualin Park in Palmerstown, Raheen Open Space in Tallaght and Rathfarnham Castle Park. Until January 16th.

Cork City Council: Locations include Civic Amenity Recycling Centre, Kinsale Road, Glen Amenity Park, Kennedy Park and the Lee Fields at the bottle bank site. January 7th-31st.

Galway City Council: An Ceathru Rua, the car park in Oughterard, the council yard in Headford and the recycling centre in Tuam. January 9th-16th.

Limerick City Council: tree-shredding at Watchouse Cross tomorrow and on January 15th (9am to 3pm), and at Childers Road, Rosbrien, on Friday and on January 16th (9am to 3pm).