TREE RECYCLING
A New Plymouth company has taken the burden out of dumping browning Christmas trees that are past their use by date.
Santa’s Choice co-owners Luke Webster and Pip McVicar accept the old trees for recycling but only if they have been bought from the company.
The Egmont Rd business, north of New Plymouth, grows up to 3000 Christmas trees a year for sale, with a dollar from each sale donated to a charity.
From Christmas Day onwards the business allows the trees to be returned to the site where they are mulched and used in compost to grow the following year’s crop of trees.
‘‘The trees need to be grown by us to be accepted, and they need to be returned by the end of January because we are moving premises to Paraite Rd in March,’’ McVicar said. The business can only take its own grown trees as it costs to hire a mulcher to mulch the old trees down, she said.
McVicar said she had become an expert at spotting trees grown by others.
‘‘All our trees are colour coded and trimmed but we sometimes get people coming in with odd trees which are not ours.
‘‘We provide a service to our customers at no charge because if we didn’t there would be a lot of trees dumped beside the road.’’
McVicar said a Christmas tree would last up to six weeks before it should be disposed of or taken for recycling.
‘‘Most people come in with their trees a few weeks after Christmas but we’ve had trees returned as late as Easter in some years.’’
Steve Ebert, of New Plymouth, had used the recycled tree service for10 years.
‘‘It’s a good service these guys provide,’’ he said.