PR: Christmas Tree Recycling Available at Three City Parks
The following is a press release from the mayor’s office:
Dec. 22, 2010 — After the glow of Christmas is gone and the decorations have been taken off the tree, City residents can take the bare tree to one of three City parks to be recycled.
Trees can be dropped off at:
- Forest Park, Lower Muny Opera parking lot
- O’Fallon Park, West Florissant and Holly, picnic grounds #4
- Carondelet Park, Grand and Holly Hills, area between gate & recycling containers
Trees will be accepted at these park sites from Mon, Dec 27, 2010 through Fri, Jan. 14, 2011. The trees will be ground into mulch that will be free and made available at the same sites. Fake or plastic trees will not be accepted.
Trees must be free of ALL decorations. Please remove the ornaments, tinsel, lights and tree stand. Do NOT put the tree in a plastic bag or cover it. Wreaths and pine roping are not accepted at the sites.
“We want to encourage residents to recycle their Christmas trees. Locations in the north, south and central areas of the City were chosen to ensure that our recycling sites are as convenient as possible,” said Greg Hayes, Forestry Commissioner.
City residents should not place Christmas trees in alley dumpsters or recycling containers. The Refuse Division will collect them as part of its regular monthly bulk pickup program.
Seriously. How hard would it be for the bulk pickup trucks (or yardwaste) to recycle the trees themselves? It's not like people are adding grass clippings to the yardwaste dumpsters in the middle of January.
The point of taxes isn't that I'm spending my weekends driving around to drop off my recycling at the proper 15 different locations. Why not just have everyone drop off their trash at the dump too? That way everyone can save the 100$ extra dollars that they're supposedly paying for the service. Of course, I say supposedly because in reality that money is funding the cushy firefighters pension fund, while everyone who works in private industry has to live with the fact that their retirement has been erased by the stock market crash. Do firefighters _really_ need to retire at 38? Yes, that's right, I said 38. Meanwhile they have the audacity to sue the city over changes to their benefits. We shouldn't be shuttering schools and introducing new taxes over this. This Missouri Supreme Court ruling needs to be challenged by state legislation.
We renewed our curb side recycling contract with Earth Circle for another 6 mos. despite the fact that we're one of the lucky wards who will supposedly get a blue dumpster in the alleyway. I also fail to understand the logic of introducing Recycling some wards and not others. They don't even need more dumpsters, all they have to do is re-stamp every 3rd one with paint “Recycling” and repurpose the second trash pick up every week. The idea isn't that more waste will be generated, just that it will be sorted to be reused. The city would probably make back what it's paying to sort the stuff in what it gets paid for the recycled material.
But nevertheless, I digress. As far as my tree is concerned, it's going to the dump, as opposed to Forest Park, like I suspect most people's trees in the city. The worms will eat it and enjoy it either way.
Boy, that'll teach 'em; You go Tiger!