HOW TO RECYCLE YOUR CHRISTMAS TREE IN INDIANAPOLIS
Christmas trees that are grown, cut, sold, and recycled locally are about as environmentally responsible as it gets. This is a stark contrast with artificial Christmas trees, which are bound for the landfill once they get worn out.
The City of Indianapolis recycles Christmas trees for mulch, which is then used in parks and green spaces around the city. But, it’s not as simple as tossing your tree out with the trash.
For your tree to be recycled, it needs to be completely free of all lights, decorations, and ornaments—down to the last piece of tinsel. Don’t wrap your tree in a plastic bag; it needs to be uncovered to get picked up for recycling. Any leftover decorations render the tree unrecyclable because it cannot be put through a wood chipper safely.
You can drop decoration-free trees off at the following Indy Parks locations from December 26 to January 31. This service is available for all Marion County Residents.
Broad Ripple Park, 1610 Broad Ripple Ave., south lot
Ellenberger Park, 5301 E. St. Clair St., east of pool in main parking lot
Garfield Park, 2345 Pagoda Dr., in front of the MacAllister Amphitheater
Gustafson Park, 3110 Moller Rd., near the pool
Krannert Park, 605 S. High School Rd., north parking lot
Northwestway Park, 5253 W. 62nd St., near the pool
Perry Park, 451 E. Stop 11 Rd., soccer field parking lot
Riverside Park, 2420 N. Riverside Dr., tennis court parking lot
Sahm Park, 6801 E. 91st St., soccer field parking lot
The city’s recycling program is probably your best bet if you live in town. However, there are also other ways to recycle your tree on your own.
Rent a chipper. Let your neighbors know, and hold a community chipping day. Everyone can pitch in to cover the rental, bring their tree to be chipped, and go home with some mulch to use in their yard.
Use it for firewood & needle mulch. Tree needles are a great mulch; in fact, the fallen needles of wild conifers act as a natural mulch for their host tree. There's an easy way to harvest the needles from your Christmas tree to use as mulch. If you have a saw or an ax, you can take all the branches off your tree, and pile them somewhere where you need a dose of mulch. As they dry, the needles will start to fall off. Once they’re fully dry, give them a good shake and the rest of the needles should come tumbling down. If you’ve got an outdoor fire pit, you can cut the branches and tree trunk down into burnable sizes and stack them. The branches will likely be burnable this coming summer, but the trunk pieces will probably need another year to cure and dry enough to be used as firewood.
Check with your local fish & games office. Clean Christmas trees can be recycled as fish habitats in ponds, or as riverbank or sand dune restoration to help fight erosion and maintain ecological stability.
Call a nearby zoo or wildlife rehabilitation center. Sometimes they can use clean Christmas trees as part of their enrichment programs that help the resident animals exercise their brains and bodies.
Let the birds shelter in it. Prop it up in your backyard near a bird feeder. (It’ll start to look a bit messy in the front, and your neighbors may not appreciate it!) Little birds will be happy for some shelter close to their feeders. When the tree has lost all of its needles in the spring, chop it up and stack it up for firewood.
Craft with it. If you’re handy, you can cut the tree up and make it into a variety of different crafts like wooden reindeer decorations, wooden coasters or serving trays, or wooden ornaments that you can give to friends next Christmas.
However you choose to dispose of your tree this year in Indianapolis, please do it responsibly! Let's work together to give back to our ecosystems and keep our Christmas trees out of landfills.