Weekly City Update: Holiday Recycling

By CS | December 17, 2009

2009 Christmas Tree Recycling Program:  Make a Gift of your Christmas Tree!

The 2009-2010 Christmas tree recycling program features curbside collection of trees for East Baton Rouge Parish residents, excluding Baker and Zachary, as well as drop-off locations for businesses and residents who do not have curbside recycling services.

Susan Hamilton, director of recycling, states, “Allied Waste will collect Christmas trees placed at the curb specifically for recycling between January 4^th and January 12^th 2010, and deliver them to Natural Resources Recovery, the city-parish woody waste recycling contractor.”   “The trees will be collected in rear loaders with other unbundled trash, sorted at the woody waste recycling center, and recycled into mulch or used in coastal restoration projects,” she continues.   

Residents should remove tinsel, metal stands, lights, and ornaments from trees before placing at the curb, as these items can be harmful to marine life and contaminate mulch and compost products.    

Drop-off collection sites open from Saturday, December 26 through Monday, January 25 are as follows:

                Independence Park, 7500 Independence Blvd.

                Highland Road Park, 14024 Highland Road

                Kathy Drive Park, enter off  O’Neal Lane by Team Toyota

                North Sherwood Forest Park, 3140 N. Sherwood Forest

                Pecue Wood Recycling Facility, 9455 Pecue Lane

                Scenic Hwy. Wood Recycling Facility, 12601 Scenic Hwy.

                LSU, Skip Bertman Drive in lot across from Vet School

Sponsors of the Christmas tree recycling program are the EBRP Recycling Office, EBRP Department of Public Works, Allied Waste, The Recycling Foundation, Natural Resources Recovery, Inc., BREC, and LSU.

Call the EBRP Recycling Office at 225.389.5194 for more information, or visit our web site at www.brgov.com/recycle.

 RECYCLING GUIDELINES FOR CHRISTMAS

 All clean, folded flattened cardboard boxes accepted in the curbside recycling cart.  Place inside or next to recycling cart.  Wrapping paper may be placed inside the recycling cart.

No tissue paper accepted.

 Residents who would like a recycling cart should call 925-3442.

 The recycling drop off for apartment tenants and small businesses will be held on Saturday January16^th at the Louisiana Department of Insurance, 6945 Florida Boulevard, 8:00 a.m. until noon.  Christmas wrapping paper and clean folded cardboard will be accepted. No Christmas trees are accepted at this drop off.

No recycling service on Christmas or New Year’s Day.  A make-up day will be provided for both days on the following Saturday:  December 26 and January 2.

TEN TIPS FOR A GREENER CHRISTMAS*

Consider reducing your holiday purchases:   You’ll save energy expended while shopping and every item you don’t purchase means less energy going into the production, packaging and shipping of that item.

Buy reusable, rechargeable batteries:  Over 40% of battery sales are made during the holidays.  Using & reusing rechargeable batteries will reduce your trips to the store to buy batteries and reduce the energy that goes into mining the metals, manufacturing the batteries and shipping.

Buy local and avoid over-packaging:  As you are making holiday purchases, consider buying locally produced items (reducing the energy used for transportation and supporting the local economy) or gifts of services.  Also, if an item includes excessive packaging, or the product can not be easily recycled at the end of its life you might want to consider giving a different gift.

Recycle your gift wrap:  When using gift-wrap, buy recycled papers, which use 60% less energy to produce than virgin paper (and generates 95% less air pollution) according to Earth911.com    And recycle and/or reuse the paper, gift bags and ribbons on the gifts that you receive. 

Use LED Christmas lights:  LED Christmas lights are now widely available and reduce energy consumption by 80-90%

Lights out at 10PM:  Be sure to turn your indoor or outdoor decorative lights off overnight 6:00 – 10:00 PM are the prime visibility hours.

Set the thermostat lower during your holiday gatherings:  With extra warm bodies, you can set the thermostat lower and stay just as cozy.

Cook efficiently:  Resist the temptation to open the oven door and peek at your baked goods, which can reduce the oven temperature by up to 25 degrees.  Consider baking several items at one time, and use the right size pan for your stovetop burner, which will also reduce energy waste by as much as 40%. 

There’s no place like home for the holidays:  A round trip flight from New York to Los Angeles produces 1,436 lbs of CO2 according to Terra Pass (this is about 6% of typical household energy use).  If you can stay home, you’ll save energy.

*Tips for a greener Christmas taken from Kilowatt Ours Community (http://www.kilowattourscommunity.org)