Chapel Hill will pick up Christmas trees and wreaths for mulching during regular yard waste collection.
Decorations, tinsel and wire must be removed from trees and wreaths before being placed at the curb with other yard waste. Apartment complex residents should place trees in areas designated by property managers.
It's holiday time, which means more waste is making its way into your home by way of presents, decor and all those holiday goodies. Find out how and where you can dispose of the extra holiday waste with our roundup of holiday recycling programs in the Triangle area:
The Town of Cary will begin pickup of Christmas trees and vegetative material such as wreaths and garland as a part of regular curbside yard waste collection on Jan. 3.
The City of Durham will be hosting a paper-shredding, e-waste and Christmas tree recycling event on Saturday, Jan. 14, at the Sears parking lot at Northgate Mall.
Nearly all electronics with a cord will be accepted for recycling, including:
Don't toss that holiday waste — recycle it with Wake County's Holiday Wrap-Up recycling program.
Residents can drop off Christmas trees (without lights, ornamentation, etc.), wrapping paper (excluding foil and bows), holiday greeting cards, corrugated cardboard, chipboard (i.e. cereal boxes, paper roll tubes, etc.), SBS Board (i.e. shirt and gift boxes), magazines and catalogs at the following convenience centers:
Finding the perfect Christmas tree can be a challenge. But finding a tree with the perfect looks and the perfect price tag -- now that's a trick.
This time of year, it's nearly impossible to drive more than a mile or two without seeing trees for sale -- out of the backs of pick-up trucks, at road-side tree lots, in hardware stores, and direct from North Carolina farmers at the state Farmers Market in Raleigh.
The hardware stores, as you might expect, have the lowest prices on standard-size Fraser Firs, the most popular among Christmas trees. At Home Depot, a 6- to 7-footer, for example, sells for $31.97, which was the cheapest I came across other than those being sold out of pick-up trucks for $20 a pop.
But what you save in price, you might give up in selection and freshness.
At the farmers market, you can find everything from a $10 table-top model to a $200 mammoth 12-footer. If you're timing is right, you just might choose a tree coming straight off flatbed trucks from the mountains, some with snow still on them.
The holiday season, from Thanksgiving through New Year's Day, is also the most wasteful season, as American household waste increases by more than 25 percent. All that added food waste, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows, ribbons and more adds up to an additional one million tons a week to the landfills in the United States.
Chapel Hill solid waste crews will pick up Christmas trees and wreaths for mulching on the regular yard waste collection schedule.
Raleigh residents will be able to leave their live Christmas trees and wreaths (free of any ornamentation, of course) at the curb for pickup with regular yard waste.
Now that we're finally thawing out from the winter storm, it's time to take out the holiday recycling. Here is a roundup of recycling drives and tree pick-ups in the Triangle area:
