Tuesday, January 15, 2008

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday - modified schedules

Montgomery County-provided recycling and trash collections

Monday, January 21, 2008 - Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s Birthday - is a recycling and trash collection holiday. After the holiday, all County-provided recycling and trash collections will be one day later than normal during the week of January 21.

If you have any questions or concerns about your County-provided collection, please contact our Customer Service staff online or call 240-777-6410.

Note: if you (or your community) have a private contract for your trash collection, these schedule announcements may not apply to your trash service -- check with your hauler or community manager.

Shady Grove Transfer Station

From pretty Christmas trees to marvelous mulch

What happens to your Christmas tree after it is whisked away from your curb for recycling?

Yard trim trucks carrying leaves, grass, and brush -- and Christmas trees! -- enter the Solid Waste Transfer Station through its Truck Entrance.

Solid Waste Transfer Station Truck Entrance

After weighing in on the scales, the trucks head over to the Yard Trim area.

Sign directing Transfer Station users to yard trim area

Look at that big pile of yard trim and trees! See those paper yard trim bags? They will be ground up right along with their contents.

Pile of Christmas trees and other yard trim

Here is the grinder at work.

Grinder at work producing mulch

The pile of yard trim and trees is in the foreground of this photo; the resulting mulch pile is in the background. With the remainder of the autumn leaves, and now the Christmas trees, in the mix, January and February are excellent times to come and take home some of our mulch.

Photo of unshredded yard trim and resulting mulch

Wednesday, January 02, 2008

How do I dispose of an artificial Christmas tree?

A Happy New Year to all of you!

From a Live Help chat to us:

What is the prescribed way to dispose of an old artificle / fake metal Christmas tree? Thanks.

Actually, thank you for the opportunity to add to the information on our Christmas tree recycling web page.

Here is the information I have added to the Christmas tree page...

If you have Montgomery County-provided trash collection service

If you have Montgomery County-provided trash service, please request a bulk trash pickup for your artificial Christmas tree at www.montgomerycountymd.gov/bulktrash or 240-777-6410.

If you have privately-provided trash service

If you have privately-provided trash service because you or your homeowners' association have direct contract with a company, please check with your collection company for instructions.

If your artificial tree is still in usable condition

If your artificial Christmas tree is still in usable condition, consider offering it to a fellow community member on your local Freecycle Network group.