Recycling of ‘Waste’ Takes No Holiday : Environment: There are easy ways to lessen the impact of the paper blizzard. Even your Christmas tree can get back to the land.
Between the Christmas tree, the boxes, the wrapping paper and the greeting cards, your humble home probably looks like a landfill right about now.
But before you start hauling this “trash” out to that Big Bin in the Back, here are tips from recycling experts on how to save the Earth as you clean up from the holidays.
The Tree
The gifts may be gone, but your Christmas tree still holds charm for the Los Angeles Bureau of Sanitation, which has expanded its tree recycling program. Seven drop-off sites are offering coupons redeemable for free bags of mulch in exchange for cut trees that will be recycled into wood chips for compost.
Just remove ornaments, tinsel and stand and bring the tree to one of these sites:
* Sunland: Sunland Park and Recreation Center, 8651 Foothill Blvd.
* Encino: Balboa Sports Center, 17015 Burbank Blvd.
* Hollywood: The Hollywood Bowl, 2301 N. Highland Ave.
* Mar Vista: Mar Vista Park and Recreation Center, 11430 Woodbine St.
* Highland Park: Highland Park Senior Citizen Center, 6200 York Blvd.
* Los Angeles: Rancho Cienega Sports Center, 5001 Rodeo Road.
* Harbor City: Harbor Regional Park, 25700 Vermont Ave.
Hours: 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday through Jan. 4, except New Year’s Day.
Residents who receive the city’s automated refuse collection service can leave their stripped trees (6 feet or taller) next to their automated containers for curbside pickup. Collection will be Monday through Jan. 4 (except New Year’s Day) and Jan. 6 through Jan. 10.
For information, call: (800) CITY SAN.
Under the Tree
Don’t clog your vacuum with dried evergreen needles. And whatever you do, don’t burn them.
Even though dry branches and brittle needles make a hearty crackling fire, they also distribute pine tar in the flue and chimney. Instead, put any fallen needles and twigs into brown paper bags and toss them onto the back-yard compost pile, bags and all, where everything will decompose.
If you don’t have a compost pile, make a New Year’s resolution to start one, joining more than 3 million American homes in reducing trash. It’s all spelled out in “Backyard Composting: Your Complete Guide to Recycling Yard Clippings,” a new handbook from Harmonious Press, P.O. Box 1865, Ojai, Calif. 93024. The $6.95 guide, available in bookstores, is an introduction to composting, which conserves water, increases plant growth, replaces chemical fertilizers and pesticides, and is fun as well as virtuous.
Gift Debris
* Fold and save empty gift boxes for next year.
* Flatten corrugated boxes and take them to your local supermarket, where they will be added to the stack the store recycles.
* If boxes are the right size and heft, use them as extra recycling bins or to haul cans, bottles and plastics to the nearest recycling center.
* Save wrapping paper and ribbons for reuse.
* Either reuse the polystyrene packaging “peanuts” and the molded polystyrene from boxes holding cameras, TVs, VCRs and other appliances or send them to: Free-Flow Packaging, 1093 Charter St., Redwood City, Calif. 94063. You can also take the “peanuts” to a Mail Boxes Etc. for reuse. For the nearest outlet, call (800) 828-2214.
Holiday Cards
Donate Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanzaa cards to senior citizen centers, preschools or recreation centers for arts and crafts projects. Some hospitals and nursing homes accept the fronts of cards as donations; patients recycle by pasting them on construction paper for use as holiday cards the next year. Or cut your cards on the crease and make them into holiday postcards. That saves envelopes.
And while you’re at it, have your name removed from junk mail lists by writing: Mail Preference Service, Direct Marketing Assn. Inc., 11 W. 42nd St., P.O. Box 3861, New York, N.Y., 10163.
