Image Credit: CFJC Today / Jill Sperling

By Jill Sperling

Christmas waste

How to properly dispose of Christmas trees and other holiday waste

Dec 27, 2019 | 3:52 PM

KAMLOOPS — With Christmas now over, people are beginning to put away their decorations and take down their trees.

The City of Kamloops has 12 sites designated to tree disposal across Kamloops.

“Pretty well every neighbourhood has one,” said the City’s Streets and Environmental Services Manager, Glen Farrow. “The busiest ones are the main yard waste sites that we have, then Albert McGowan Park, Juniper Ridge and McArthur Island. Those three are very busy, capturing a lot of product from those neighbourhoods.”

Farrow says the city collects around 3,000 trees for recycling each year. The trees are then chipped and ground up for use in compost.

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For this reason, ornaments and tinsel must be removed before the tree is disposed of.

“Anything that gets ground other than wood is a problem,” Farrow said. “So, we don’t want to bog down that grinder with any metal or ornament or Christmas lights. Some of those ornaments are pretty special, so we wouldn’t want to have them at our facility.”

If you don’t have the means to transport your tree to a disposal site yourself, there is another option.

Ed LaPierre, also known as Ed the Security Guy, runs a charity tree pick up service.

“Starting this weekend, I’ll be running all over the city picking up trees for a minimum donation of $10,” LaPierre said. “I’ll take your tree to any of the Kamloops recycling depots or even the Wildlife Park. The $10 donation goes directly to Kamloops Hospice.”

LaPierre raised more than $1,100 for Kamloops Hospice last year, and hopes to surpass that amount this year.

“To get their tree picked up all I need is their phone number, their address and they can call me at (250) 851-1131 or email securityguy@telus.net.”

LaPierre will be picking up trees both this weekend and next weekend.

In addition to Christmas tree disposal, the city is allowing for more household waste to be put out at the curb for collection.

People are encouraged to bring their recycling to Recycle BC depots, and to be mindful of what can or cannot be recycled.

“This time of year there’s a lot of different products,” Farrow said, “you know, it might be an old electronic toy, you’re replacing a phone or a new television, so we have a great app called Kamloops Waste Wise. You can put in that particular item and you can search it and it’s a great resource to determine where that recycling goes.”

The app can also help people figure out collection days following a shifting of schedules that takes place over the holidays.

“That Waste Wise app also provides a notification to your phone indicating to put your carts out and you’re able to do that the night before now so there’s not that mad rush before 7:00 a.m. getting your carts out.”