Wednesday, January 27, 2010

*Update at bottom!!* THEY TOOK MY TREEEEEEEEEE

Remember how I was complaining about how two years in a row my Christmas recycling has gone....UNrecycled?

Today I just watched the garbage guy throw my dead CHRISTMAS TREE in the trash. It was out curbside awaiting the Christmas tree mulching/composting recycling truck. I kept that damn thing on the side of my house for a MONTH and I just watched it go in the garbage truck. I don't even know what to say, except I have to make a personal apology to the polar bears. Poor babies.

****So I called the waste disposal people. This is how the call went.***

"Hello. The garbage men just put my christmas tree in the trash truck."
"Yes. That is how we're picking them up this year."
"Your plan for recycling the trees is to put them in a landfill?"
"No. That stuff is actually going to an incinerator. But they pull all the trees out and put them on a different truck before they incinerate everything."

YEA RIGHT. My flipping ASS they take all those trees out before they dump the stuff. Also, aren't the garbage trucks smashing everything as they go? That is such a crock. I want to march down to this incinerator and stand there and see if they pull Christmas trees out.

9 comments:

Marie Green said...

Ok, this is just, RIDICULOUS. I mean, WHAT THE HELL is wrong with your waste management/recycling center?

Anonymous said...

Uh what? SO LAME. I live in Arnold, right outside of Annapolis, and I gather you live in Maryland, too, and from time to time we have issues, but NEVER HAVE WE HAD A CHRISTMAS TREE PROBLEM LIKE THIS - I mean - that is just blatant, in your face, LAME. No sugar coating! Honestly, I feel your pain. And why would the trash peeps even want to lift your tree or deal with it when they could have left if for the rightful people to deal with it? It just does not make any sense. I am sorry! ~Jenny in MD

Anonymous said...

For a permanent solution to the tree recycling problem, you could plant an evergreen in your yard and put lights on it in the winter. Or to be extra eco-conscious, you could hang bird feeders on it instead of lights. The kids might not like it at first; but traditions, once established become the stuff of nostalgia. This year we had a Norfolk Island Pine in a pot and stockings "hung by the chimney with care". There's also precedent for keeping your tree as a "yule log" for next year's solstice fire (or a summer barbeque). Of course, that still releases the carbon dioxide stored in the wood; and some trees are sprayed with nasty chemicals as fire retardants.
Love,
(Great) Aunt Linda

Joel and Angela said...

That's awesome that you called.
I never watch when the garbage men come. Joel thinks they take the recycling too.

Meg said...

You are hilarious...see, if you were back home you KNOW you'd never have to deal with this! I'm cracking myself up just imagining the pandemonium that would occur if anyone got word of a tree not being recycled...street riots!! anarchy!!! That is just awful. At least if they put it in a landfill it would have biodegraded! Incinerating it is waste on top of waste!
My daughter is now old enough to be traumatized that our tree was on the curb. I tried to explain that they were just taking it to live in a park (left out the part about it being mulched first..thought that might be even more nightmarish). She kept sneaking outside and dragging it to the back yard. Finally Noel told her the waste people were going to replant it when they got to the park. Then she wrote a sidewalk epitaph about what a good tree it had been. True Story. My little tree hugging hippie.

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Grammy Bonnie said...

OK. Here's the story from Minneapolis: On trash/recycling day a truck that looks kind of like a circus train comes down the street at the crack of dawn, and each little train "compartment" has a different recycling label: newspapers, magazines, glass, metal, etc. They REALLY separate the stuff. However, WE have to separate all of it b/4 they pick it up! Rumor has it that St. Paul takes all the recycling stuff together (but separate from trash)and it is separated at the plant. Who knew??

Angie said...

Why do they even have trash day the same as recycling? And, yeah, BS they are going to separate it from the trash.

Anonymous said...

Love your post. I am a garbage collector and we take Christmas trees sometimes after the recycling period has ended. They go right into the hopper with the rest of the trash and, as you said, it's all forced and pressed together. It's not all bad.