Christmas Tree's are an essential part of the holidays for most households. Finding the perfect one to get, decorating it, lighting it at night, and then the official goodbye to Christmas as the decorations get taken off and put away for another 11 months. 

If you have a real Christmas Tree that you donated to the annual Boy Scouts Tree Pickup or you took it to the Airdrie Recycling Depot, what happens to it? 

Mara Pratt, the Education Coordinator with Airdrie Waste and Recycling Services, says the trees are recycled and put to good use around the community. 

"On December 26th we open up a pile area over at the Recycle Depot and encourage people to bring their trees. No ornaments or lights, no tinsel, none of that, just the tree itself." 

After they're brought to the Recycle Depot the trees are left in the pile for the entire month of January before an arrangement with Fortis Alberta is made, usually for the first week of February, to bring a chipper and turn the trees into mulch. The annual tree chipping was slightly postponed from the first week of February to this weekend due to the near record-breaking cold temperatures Airdrie had just received.  

After the tree chipping has finished and the large pile of trees has turned into a massive pile of mulch, the Airdrie Recycling Depot makes sure it all gets put to good use. 

"In previous years the city has used the mulch in their parks." says Pratt, "Then, in the summer, there's a mulch pile near the depot at 15 East Lake Hill where people can come and grab some mulch." 

Last year, 2020, was the first year in recent history that the $5 tree chopping fee was waived for Albertans who wanted to cut a real tree down on provincial crown land. Despite the waived fee offering more incentive to chop a real tree, Pratt says the depot received significantly less trees than normal. 

"This year we had only about half the number of trees. Maybe people chopped them up themselves and placed them in the organics bin. It could be that less people bought trees this year, it would be interesting to see the numbers on how many people bought trees for this past Christmas than in previous years. 

Aside from the tree chipping and the Boy Scouts Pickup, Pratt says there are other ways to dispose of your real Christmas Tree in a way it gets reused. Pratt says there are conservation groups that take real trees and give them to animals to use as natural enrichment and habitat. 

Saturday's tree chipping isn't a public event, and happens just off the Recycling Depot premises. But Pratt says even though you won't be able to see the tree chipping, you'll be able to smell it from a mile away.