Holiday Recycling Day:  2013

Purdue Extension Service of Vanderburgh County, Southwestern Indiana Master Gardener Association, and the Vanderburgh County Solid Waste District teamed up to hold our annual holiday recycling event on January 5, 2013 at the Evansville (Indiana) Civic Center parking lot. We had over 500 cars drop off recyclables, including 234 Christmas trees, which were turned into mulch and given away for free.

Pictured here are thumbnails; click the picture to download a full-size photo (note: full sized photos may be 2.0 to 4.0 MB in size).

 
Joe Ballard and Susan Jeffries, of the Vanderburgh County Solid Waste District, were responsible for today's program.

      
Randy's Tree Service returned once again to chip up the Christmas trees and turn them into mulch.  And for the first time, Rick Lamble of Verde Partners participated.  Verde Partners is a new Evansville-area company that is working to recycle horticultural plastic, such as flower pots, trays, cell packs, and more.

   
Volunteers from SWIMGA and local high schools helped remove recyclables from cars, sorted them, and placed them in the proper roll-off bins.  At least 40 volunteers were kept busy throughout the day.

  
Sorting glass (left) and reading (er, sorting) paper on the right.

    
Even in the middle of winter, gardeners enthusiastically responded to the opportunity to recycle flower pots.

 
Master Gardeners directed traffic, despite the public's lack of desire to be directed (left).  We also had volunteers counting cars and trees (right).

     
Christmas trees arrived by car and pickup truck (left), and by the trailerload (center).  Some people were not quite as responsible with how they brought their trees:  the picture on the right shows a car driving up with a passenger halfway out the car, holding the tree down!  And we didn't get a picture of the guy who dragged his tree behind his car from across town.

  
Christmas trees are unloaded by Master Gardeners (left) and dragged to Randy's Tree Service's chipper (right).

    
Trees being chipped.  When the collection truck was full, it was dumped out for folks wanting mulch.

  
Master Gardener helping to provide free mulch to one of our customers.

Um...as a rule of thumb, folks, it's a good idea to undecorate your tree BEFORE you bring it to the recycling day.  This is about 50 pounds of light strings from just one tree.