City axes Calgary Christmas tree pickup program

Ladies and gentlemen, start your vacuums.

With the departure of the Christmas tree pickup program, Calgarians will be busy cleaning pine needles from their vehicles this holiday season.

The city axed its convenient household collection program to reduce its overall operating costs for 2017, which means the public must haul their dry and dead trees to a designated recycling depot — just like they do in the fall for leaves and pumpkins.

"The needles falling off on the dry trees is definitely a challenge," said Sharon Howland with the city's waste and recycling services.

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"But it's only been the past few years that you could actually put your tree out in the alley or out front for collection by the separated truck," she said.

"We did see good participation in the drop-off only program before we moved to the collection based program … so we suspect that Calgarians are going to embrace the program again this year."

But opinions on social media are mixed.

"What? Sounds like conspiracy theory to let people skip real tree and buy plastic ones made in China, which is so much more harmful for our earth," wrote Anna Wasniewska in a Facebook post.

"Maybe the #ToolLibrary will get a mulcher and people can mulch their trees and use in their gardens," suggested Gena Rotstein. 

Howland said the city is still finalizing drop-off locations and will post the list soon on the city website. The Christmas tree recycling program will run from Dec. 26 to Jan. 31.