While the holiday season may come with loved ones, long-respected traditions and aromatic Christmas trees, it also comes with garbage and the subsequent dilemma of what holiday waste should be placed in the garbage and what should be recycled.
“We get the same contaminants as we get year-round during Christmas, then there’s just these added things,” said Emily Morgan Malik, Logan City’s environmental public information officer. “Bows, ribbons, the handles on the gift bags, lots more foil pans from cooking and none of that is recyclable, unfortunately.”
According to Malik, other holiday items that shouldn’t be recycled are the clear plastic covers that keep toys held to cardboard packaging, artificial Christmas trees, tinsel, lawn ornaments and foil wrapping paper.
“Nothing that looks like silver or gold,” she said, explaining how to tell if wrapping paper has foil. “It’s kind of hard to tell on some of them.”
Other types of wrapping paper can be recycled, as can cardboard and gift bags if the handles are taken off.
Malik added it is also helpful if cardboard boxes are broken down and do not prevent recycling bins’ lids from closing.
If the bin does not provide enough space, residents can take cardboard to the overflow station at the Logan City Landfill.
Placing non-recyclable items in recycling bins, however, often means the entire bag will be trashed.
“If you have a bag of wrapping paper and some of it has ribbons and bows on it, they’re not going to have the time on a sort line to sort all of that out,” Malik said. “It’s going to end up in the garbage.”
When it comes time to get rid of Christmas trees, Cache Valley residents can dispose of them in drop sites around the county, provided their specific plant was once alive and they have stripped it of all decoration.
There are, however, other options.
“If you’re wanting to spend the time to cut it down and fit it into your garbage can, that’s totally fine, that’s your prerogative,” Malik said.
She added individuals can place the tree segments in their green waste bins.
“We won’t collect it until March, but it can hang out in there. That’s totally fine by us,” she said.
At least in Logan City, Malik clarified, trees should not be left curbside.
“There’s no one that’s going to come and get your tree,” she said.
Given a previous experience, she also added that raw turkey — or any other food, for that matter — is not recyclable.
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