Innovation & Technology Innovation & Technology

Latest Weapon in Battle to Reduce Christmas Tree Waste:
Goats

It's that time of year again — when thousands of Christmas trees go from being the resplendently ornamented focal point of a festive holiday scene to a sad heap on the sidewalk next to the trash bin, the perfect visual representation of that “day after Christmas” feeling.Luckily more and more cities have launched Christmas tree recycling programs, which usually turn them into mulch for reuse in gardens, but far too many still end up in landfills, which in some areas, creates a fire hazard.

By Sustainable Brands | Published 9 years ago | About a 2 minute read

Luckily more and more cities have launched Christmas tree recycling programs, which usually turn them into mulch for reuse in gardens, but far too many still end up in landfills, which in some areas, creates a fire hazard.

But Vince Thomas, a volunteer firefighter with Truckee Meadows Fire Protection District (TMFPD) in Truckee, Calif. and founder of Goat Grazers — a service that provides goats for weed abatement, pasture improvement and vegetation-thinning projects of all kinds — put the two together and came up with a win-win solution.

Now Thomas and his 40 goats have partnered with the TMFPD to help local residents recycle their Christmas trees. Through January 9, residents can bring their all-natural, unflocked, completely undecorated trees to several TMFPD fire stations throughout the area.

"All the trees will be taken to the Truckee Meadows fire station in Washoe Valley, which has a lot more room for all them," Thomas told the Reno Gazette-Journal. "Then, we'll toss them over the fence and let the goats have at them."

Thomas says the goats eat the needles, leaving behind the trunk and naked branches of the tree.

"Christmas trees are great for campfire, and we're thinking about cutting them into smaller pieces and using them for firewood or chipping them," he said.

Thomas, a longtime firefighter and goat herder, said his goats have helped eat fire-prone weeds.

"We thought, 'What a great way to get rid of the weeds,'" Thomas said. "With that being said, we had the idea of doing just that with the recycling program and we thought about the trees.

"And the goats are great employees, they love their job and they don't complain."

While pine needles can actually cause miscarriages in cattle and other animals, Thomas said there's no need to worry.

"For goats, it's a natural dewormer, and pine is very high in vitamin C, so it's healthy for them," he said.

If you're not in the Truckee area, fear not — City Grazing, a similar service based in San Francisco, told SB that they're also unleashing their herd on the City's discarded Christmas trees. Bay Area residents can bring their clean trees to the company's headquarters between 10am and 12pm on January 3 and 4 — though to avoid overwhelming the goats, they're limiting it to 100 trees.

While this adorable service isn’t widely available, we’re happy to add it to the growing list of creative and thoughtful solutions to reducing our holiday waste.