Same Old Grind

Like flat champagne, overcooked turkey or yet another box of sweat socks, it’s a guaranteed seasonal downer: the sight of a dried-out, post-holiday Christmas tree.

But Ventura County residents can turn that depressed feeling into something positive for the environment by recycling their trees this year, said waste management officials.

“People who care about recycling always feel a little guilty around the holidays anyway, because we’re producing so much more trash than we usually do,” said Carolyn Greene, senior management analyst for Thousand Oaks. “At least if we recycle a tree, we’re doing something a little bit extra.”

About 90,000 holiday trees will be ground up and put to use in fertilizers, specialized soils and other garden garnishes this year in Ventura County, said Bill Camarillo, who runs Ventura-based California Wood Recycling.

Residents in all 10 of the county’s cities can recycle their trees free from now until Jan. 12 by either setting them out for pickup by trash haulers or taking them to drop-off sites, said Marialyce Pederson of the Ventura County Solid Waste Management Department.

The program has been around for a decade, she said, but hundreds of trees end up in landfills every year because they are not properly set aside for recycling.

In a handful of cities--Oxnard, Santa Paula, Moorpark, Port Hueneme and Simi Valley--residents simply put their trees at the curb on trash collection days. But in all other areas of the county, residents must cut trees in half or in quarters, depending on the size, and place the remains in the yard waste cart.

In all cases, trees must be stripped of lights, ornaments, tinsel and the stand.

“The metal can do a lot of damage to the wood-grinding equipment,” Pederson said.

It’s so important, in fact, that a local Boy Scout troop has offered to come to people’s homes to assist them in prying the stands from trunks or cutting the dead tree into manageable chunks, she said.

Not only does recycling trees save space in landfills, the materials generated by recycling are useful to landscaping and agriculture industries.

After they are recycled, finely ground Christmas tree wood chips can be mixed with other green waste and composted into fertilizer, scattered along garden paths or used for weed suppression, Greene said.

California Wood Recycling also sells it as “biofuel” to an energy plant in the Central Valley, Camarillo said.

On Christmas tree farms throughout California, the wood chips keep weeds away from next year’s batch of trees and help conserve water, said Joe McNally, California director of the National Christmas Tree Assn.

The mulch is spread between rows of seedlings or used on farm landscaping.

“More and more farms are doing it because it cuts down on chemicals and we’re out of that era of spraying everything,” said McNally, who runs a farm and a Christmas tree lot in Northern California.

About 4 million trees were purchased statewide this year. Recycling figures are said to be higher in California because of a state law mandating more trash be diverted from landfills, McNally said.

In Ventura County, most Christmas tree lots recycle their unsold pines, spruces and firs through their city’s trash hauler, said Marilyn L. Gallagher, government affairs officer for GI Rubbish, which serves the east county.

Trash haulers take truckloads of used-up evergreens to one of the two California Wood Recycling Plant locations, where they are chopped up in a large grinder. The material is then sorted into three sizes of chips.

The Christmas firs are a seasonal addition to the tree trimmings, grass clippings and wood scraps recycled at the Ventura plant.

Their strong pine scent wafted over mounds of mulch Thursday.

“This goes on seven days a week,” Camarillo said. “We usually just get a little more attention around this time of year.”

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FYI

Pickup options

* Camarillo, Fillmore, Oak Park, Ojai, Piru, Somis, Thousand Oaks, Ventura: Cut your tree in half and place it in the yard waste cart on regular collection days.

* Oxnard, Santa Paula, Moorpark, Port Hueneme, Simi Valley: Cut tree in half if it’s more than 6 feet tall and place on the curb on regular collection days. Extra charges apply in Oxnard and Port Hueneme after Jan. 12.

* Residents of multifamily complexes: Check with building manager.

Drop-off options

* Agromin sites in Camarillo, Saticoy and Moorpark. 800-AGR-OMIN

* Shoreline Organics, 6859 Arnold Road. (805) 986-2299

* Simi Valley Landfill, 2801 Madera Road. (805) 579-7267

Special drop-off sites for residents only

* Oxnard: Del Norte Recycling and Transfer Station, 111 Del Norte Blvd. Monday through Saturday, 5:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

* Port Hueneme: Municipal Service Yard, 700 E. Port Hueneme Blvd. Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.

* Santa Paula: Railroad Depot. Through Jan. 5.

* Thousand Oaks: Lot adjacent to Janss Road Park & Ride. Jan. 6 from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Recycling event includes free tree chips.

Source: Ventura County Solid Waste Management Department