‘It’s sort of kill a tree, plant a tree.’

Everyone has heard about their old cars being ground up and recycled as brand new Japanese automobiles. Well, this is about old trees being ground up and recycled as new foliage.

Last month, the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation asked residents to drop their old Christmas trees off after the holidays at any of seven pickup points around the city so they could be put to some better use than buried trash.

According to Brent Lorscheider, assistant manager of the bureau’s solid waste task force, about 3,000 people complied.

The trees are now being shredded into mulch and applied as a soil conditioner on flowerbeds, shrubbery and other landscaping at the Lopez Canyon Landfill at the north end of the San Fernando Valley.

As a bonus, each person who dropped off a tree was given a seedling--a small, drought-resistant conifer--to plant somewhere as a sort of a replacement for the departed Christmas trees.

“It’s sort of kill a tree, plant a tree,” Lorscheider said with a chuckle. “It eases all our consciences somewhat.”

Lorscheider said that since it was the first time the city had tried the program, “we had no idea how well it would work . . .

“I’d say it went pretty well,” he said. “We got a little bit of everything, but for the most part, people did what they supposed to and just dropped off Christmas trees.

“More than anything, it got people thinking about recycling,” he said. “We’re going to try it again next year.”