Salt Lake County resumes Christmas tree collection in White City

It’s a post holiday season tradition: each January, Salt Lake County crews pick up curbside Christmas trees discarded throughout White City after the holiday is over.

As a township, White City is part of the Salt Lake County service district. This year, from Jan. 4 through the end of the month, county Sanitation Division crews will be collecting the Christmas trees and delivering them to the local landfill to be recycled.

Salt Lake County Sanitation Division Manager Bill Hobbs said it is important for residents to remember to remove all decorations from their natural tree before placing it curbside for pick-up.

“It has to be a bare tree, or crews won’t pick it up,” Hobbs said. “Our biggest problem is people leaving [decorations] on the tree.”

The trees must be stripped of all ornaments, tinsel and lighting because once it reaches the landfill, the tree will be mulched for reuse in gardens.

Only evergreen trees will be accepted, because a flocked tree could contain chemical residue that would make it unsuitable to place on ground used to grow food.

“People use the mulch for all sorts of things,” Hobbs said.

Residents should plan to place their trees on the parking strip near their home, rather than with the garbage, because the tree collection will be performed by a different crew than the ones who pick up the trash bins each week.

This is the fourth year Salt Lake County has provided the Christmas tree collection service to White City residents.

Hobbs said crews will visit each residential street in White City at least twice during the month to pick up the trees.

The second and third week of the month are usually the busiest time for crews, so residents should try to be patient if their tree isn’t picked up right away.

“Sometimes it can take us up to two weeks to get to all of the [neighborhoods],” Hobbs said.