S.F. Christmas trees get new life as mulch
City’s curbside recycling program will collect them to be ground up
“We’re in a period of really dry conditions — it hasn’t rained for a month. Recycling of Christmas trees is another way to do right by the environment.” Recology spokesman Robert Reed
Stripped of their tinsel and unburdened by lights or porcelain angels, the Christmas trees of San Francisco are ready for a new life.
“We need to take those trees and create wonderful mulch out of them,” said Debbie Raphael, director of the city’s Department of the Environment, in Civic Center Plaza on Thursday, where crews in orange vests fed a pile of conifers into a giant wood chipper.
From Jan. 2 through Jan. 12, the city’s long-standing waste hauler, Recology, wants residents to place their trees on the curb next to their recycling bins on their scheduled collection days. Recology will tote the trees to its transfer station in the Bayview, where it will grind them up and then ship them to Blossom Valley Organics, a process-
ing facility near Modesto.
There, the trees’ second life begins. Blossom Valley Organics will convert them into mulch and bark products that are sold for use in yards and gardens throughout Northern California. The mulch will be spread over soil, keeping moisture in and fending off weeds. As years go by, the wood chips will decompose, providing nutrients for plants and trees.
“This is the highest and best use,” Raphael said, noting that in past years the city converted the trees into biomass to fuel boilers and power turbines. Now the trees are strictly used for landscaping, which is better for the environment.
Tree recycling has become an annual routine in other cities as well, with many grinding the bark into wood chips or using it for fuel. Residents in Chico and Oroville can arrange to have their trees dropped into Lake Oroville, where the branches form fish habitat.
Recology spokesman Robert Reed said the mulch produced from San Francisco’s evergreens will help save water during a dry year.
“We’re in a period of really dry conditions — it hasn’t rained for a month,” he said. “Recycling of Christmas trees is another way to do right by the environment.”
Environmental officials expect to recycle about 500 tons of trees this year, roughly on par with last year’s haul of 498 tons. The holiday tradition is now in its 31st year and tracks with the city’s aggressive goal of producing zero waste by 2020.
In recent years, San Francisco has banned foam products and plastic grocery bags. In October, the Department of the Environment announced a major update to the city’s recycling program: juice boxes, bagged bubble wrap, soup containers and ice cream cartons are now welcome in the blue recycling bins.
With Christmas tree recycling, the big challenge is getting San Francisco residents to wait for the January collection period. Many people are “overly ambitious,” Raphael said — a charitable way to describe the folks who toss their pines into compost bins or out on the street the day after Christmas, sometimes forgetting to prune the ornaments.
“Putting the trees out in advance of that scheduled time has us picking them up ... with regular debris that we then have to turn around and separate out,” said Larry Stringer, director of operations at the city’s Public Works Department.
That tedious process diverts Public Works crews from other vital street-cleaning duties, he said.
Raphael also warned residents not to stick trees in the green compost bins, because pines “make lousy compost.”
“They’re full of tannins and acids that make them slow to break down in nature, so it’s bad to throw them out with food scraps,” she said.
But those same qualities make healthy mulch, she said.