Mulchfest 2007 is on this weekend at locations all around NYC. During this annual event, Christmas trees are shredded into mulch for use in the city’s parks.
NYC residents can drop off their trees at any of the locations. Trees must be free of any decorations: ornaments, lights, tinsel, and so on. At designated “chipping” sites, bring a sturdy bag and shovel and you can trade your tree for mulch. One of these sites is in Prospect Park, at 3rd Street and Prospect park West. Trees can also be left curbside for pickup.
(Don’t blame me for the title of this post. It’s a quote from Mayor Bloomberg.)
NYC does it right. Here, they’ll come and pick up your Christmas tree at the curbside but you have to wait until the spring to get the mulch–and that’s stuff that includes all of the various bags of things that homeowners leave out at the curb throughout the year. (In other words, mot necessarily stuff I want in my mulch.)
Here you have to take your tree to a drop off site, and then the mulch is used by the city. I don’t think they offer it to anyone else. Thankfully, I haven’t seen too many trees “curbside”, so I think most people who had live trees do take them to a drop off site.