Archive for Downsizer For an ethical approach to consumption
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dibnah
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recycling christmas treesIt strikes me as strange how a thing that can be treated with such respect one day and then thoughtlessly discarded the next.
Anyway this is how I use mine, this is assuming that you have at least a garden or an allotment plot. If you have neither I would suggest taking it to your local household recycling centre. Most of the eight million trees bought each Christmas will be thrown away after December, generating over 12,000 tonnes of additional rubbish. That’s nearly six times the weight of the London Eye. If you know somebody who does not know how to get rid of it offer to take theirs for them I’m sure they will be pleased.
Firstly I take the tree outdoors, next take an axe or saw and remove all the branches, keep all but the very smallest, dump the rest on the compost. These branches will become protection for peas and beans. They also will last you for a few years, so you end up with a collection.
Then place all the branches on a piece of tarp or in an old compost bag. If you do use a bag keep it in a dry place. Over time all the needles will fall off and you are left with a good mulch that will keep the slugs at bay, well some of them.
The main trunk has many uses, if you have a woodburning stove then it’s fuel. I take off about 12 inches from the thick end to make a mallet, which is great for non- delicate tasks. The rest of the trunk I use for climbing plants.
In my opinion this is the best way to recycle your tree, rather than it just being put through a shredder to make simple mulch. If I can aquire a tree I’ll take photos of the process, although I don’t want to ask too many people or I’ll end up with forty trees by the back door.
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gil
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After years of using my Xmas tree branches as support for peas, I've given up - they're not long enough, and the peas end up lodging. Even with shorter varieities of peas, such as Kelvedon Wonder.
The needles are good mulch for blueberries.
Some woodburners won't take softwood logs : check manual to see which kind yours is, and what you can burn on it.
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Welsh Girls Allotment
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use the pine needles for mulching your strawberries, apparently it gives them a nicer taste, my tree has been chopped up for wood for the stove, bald twigs have also been thrown on, the rest of it is in a box waiting for all the needles to drop off, then its off to the lottie they go ! 
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Robinjw13
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These ideas are great - it's what I call real re-cycling. I'll just chuck ours in an out-of-sight are of the garden, where it will surely make a home or food for hundreds of creatures over the next few years. It should be fairly obvious to most people that 'official' recycling has a high overhead - the cost of fuel and wages for the van to collect the tree or the cost of fuel to take it to the dump, then the cost of fuel for the shredder, then more fuel to transport the mulch...... simpler if we all camped out on Christmas tree plantations over Christmas and never dug them up!
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Jonnyboy
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| gil wrote: |
Some woodburners won't take softwood logs : check manual to see which kind yours is, and what you can burn on it. |
Is it to do with the resin that comes out? I can't see that one Christmas tree would make much of a difference.
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Welsh Girls Allotment
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I burn all sorts of wood on my woodburner, is it the stove itself that doesn't like it or the chimney ? I have a chimney liner and every now and agin we get a shower of 'stuff' that comes down presumably because resin and other muck is collecting up there
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Jonnyboy
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Ours has a ceramic liner. We're having to swept soon and we kiln dried softwood and hardwood offcuts, so I'll let you know!
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gil
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Depends on the kind of stove and the chimney liner / system. The main stove here is a Vermont Castings Defiant Encore, which only takes seasoned hardwood logs (per manual) - no coal, and no softwoods. Residues certainly clag up the stove, and the flue has some poncy emissions reducer....
Most other solid fuel stoves I've come across will burn all sorts no problem. Like so many things in this house (such as the model of Rayburn installed, which I've criticised elsewhere on these boards), the stove looks fancy but is less practical than it might be.
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gil
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Depends on the kind of stove and the chimney liner / system. The main stove here is a Vermont Castings Defiant Encore, which only takes seasoned hardwood logs (per manual) - no coal, and no softwoods. Residues certainly clag up the stove, and the flue has some poncy emissions reducer....
Most other solid fuel stoves I've come across will burn all sorts no problem. Like so many things in this house (such as the model of Rayburn installed, which I've criticised elsewhere on these boards), the stove looks fancy but is less practical than it might be.
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