Recycling Project for Christmas Trees Called Mulch-Needed to Help Landfills

The city of San Diego wants to see discarded Christmas trees put to use instead of taking up valuable space in already crowded landfills.

Stripped of their glass baubles, wooden toys and gleaming tinsel, trees left with regular household trash in University City, Rancho Bernardo, Point Loma and Del Mar Heights/North City West will be picked up between now and Jan. 15 by city workers and recycled into mulch, which is used as ground cover to prevent erosion and keep soil moist.

Other cities in San Diego County, including Chula Vista, Encinitas, Escondido, La Mesa, San Marcos, Santee and Vista, have also set up collection programs to recycle trees.

Wild Animal Park Is Aided

In Escondido, the San Diego Wild Animal Park is turning into mulch the 14 truckloads of trees it has received in the past two weeks to improve ground cover throughout the park.

The animals, however, do not come into contact with it in case forgotten ornaments have been ground up with the trees, said Garth Warner, area manager of facilities for the park.

Mulch usually sells for $14 a cubic yard, said Edward del Sol, construction manager for Envirowest Landscaping. Other landscape contractors put the price of ground cover or treated mulch as high as $50.

But the city won’t be paying for the mulch they make. Instead, it will save money by creating much-needed space in the Miramar landfill and using the free ground cover to landscape city parks.

This season’s team effort by the city, the county and the San Diego Ecology Center to recycle at least 50,000 trees means saving about 1,400 cubic yards of space, the size of a box about 50 feet wide, 50 feet long and 15 feet high.

Longer Landfill Life Wanted

The goal, officials say, is to extend the life span of the landfill, fast approaching capacity and facing closure in 1995.

“The purpose is to divert as much waste as we can from going into the landfill,” said Marlene Mariani, spokeswoman for the city’s Waste Management Department. “Our landfill could be filled as soon as 1995, and we don’t have an alternative site.”

Last year, about 25% of the waste going to the landfill was “green material”--tree limbs, leaves, grass clippings, weeds and plants, Mariani said.

The Christmas tree recycling program, officially launched Tuesday, is an expanded version of an effort that has been ongoing for about 17 years, Mariani said. Last year, only San Ysidro residents could place Christmas trees by the curb to be recycled. Others had to drive their trees to drop-off locations if they wanted the trees recycled.

This year’s program uses Ecology Center staff and volunteers from San Diego State University, the Sierra Club and the Boys Club of San Diego to staff seven drop-off sites in addition to the four communities where trees to be recycled can be left by the curb.

The drop-off sites are at Miramar Landfill, Chollas Recycling Site, Sea World, the Boys Club of San Diego in Clairemont, Rose Canyon Operations Station, Mission Valley Center and Tierrasanta Community Park.

The Ecology Center, which has been referring callers to appropriate drop-off points, received 1,000 calls in the first three days after Christmas, said Executive Director Bill Kissam. The number of their hot line is 238-1984.

Good Response So Far

“Just the response we’ve seen so far, it’s probably going to be one of the biggest collections this year,” Kissam said, adding that he expects to surpass this year’s goal of 50,000 trees. The city collected about 37,000 trees last time.

San Diego Deputy Mayor Judy McCarty told guests at the official launching of the recycling drive that Christmas trees abandoned by the side of the road amounted to litter as well as being fire hazards.

“You all know we have a serious long-term, waste-management problem. . . . This is one way of dealing with that problem. Each of us can see that our Christmas trees have not died in vain. Santa will love you for it.”