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Parisians: Recycle Your Christmas Tree

Christmas trees sapins de noel

Don’t leave your Christmas tree on the curb for the landfill when you can drop it off in one of 174 collection points around Paris (mostly in parks and green spaces) to be recycled into mulch for use by Paris’s municipal gardeners as a natural weed prevention cover: http://www.paris.fr/recyclonsnossapins

Christmas tree collection point
You’ll see these collection points in most Parisian parks

Each year the City of Paris accepts trees for recycling from December 26-January 20th. They should be:

  • without a plastic bag (take it out and throw out the bag once you drop it off)
  • without any decorations, flocking or tinsel (and if you’re still doing that to your tree you probably don’t give a sh** about the planet anyway)
  • cut or rooted, both are accepted as long as they’re real trees and not plastic trees

Most of the collection points are open 24/7, just check the website for the one closest to you. 

Fun fact: In 2018 the city collected 85,209 trees, and in 2021 they collected 124,488 trees!

Christmas tree bag

Note: if you purchase one of these compostable Christmas tree bags (sac à sapin) made from cornstarch, you not only can use it to take your tree to the drop-opp point without getting pine needles everywhere, part of the price you pay goes to the non-profit Handicap International. If you take your tree to a drop-off point in a regular plastic bag, be sure to remove it before throwing your tree onto the pile for mulching.

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  • Dear Heather, Here in Montréal, we have curbside collection of Christmas trees. And yes, while our English is more UK than US, we do write curb rather than kerb in Canada. And I'm very glad you are vetting for meanspiritedness; there is altogether to much of that on the web.