A new recycling initiative by D\u00fan Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council allows people to recycle their pre-lit artificial Christmas trees\n<\/p>\n
Project reTree was launched by the council this week in Ballyogan where it will recycle artificial Christmas trees.<\/p>\n
Between November 15 to January 31, households in the area can bring their old or broken artificial Christmas trees to the recycling centre to receive a 10pc discount voucher for the US-based company Balsam Hill, according to the DLR website.<\/p>\n
“We have naturally grown Christmas trees here in Glencullen and across the Dublin mountains that face similar challenges to all rural family businesses,\u201d said Glencullen-Sandyford councillor Ois\u00edn O’Connor.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was shocked to see this week that the council is running a promotion for a multinational plastic Christmas tree company, and greenwashing it as a recycling initiative.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis company don’t even have an office or shop in Ireland, so we have a public body promoting that people buy plastic trees online from a UK subsidiary of a US multinational.”<\/p>\n
For the project, DLR is working in collaboration with Thorntons Recycling and Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE Ireland) to segregate the waste and ship it to a facility in France.<\/p>\n
\u201cPrior to this year these trees could only be disposed of, but not recycled,\u201d said a spokesperson for DLR.<\/p>\n
\u201cPre-lit artificial Christmas trees can pose a fire hazard if disposed of in wheelie bins, as is the case with all WEEE items,\u201d said the spokesperson<\/p>\n
\u201cWaste collectors and WEEE Ireland are actively working to prevent WEEE waste from being placed in wheelie bins, and the council are fully committed to supporting these efforts.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cllr O\u2019Connor said he had been in contact with the council asking it to put an end to the campaign.<\/p>\n
“I’ve no problem with people choosing to have an artificial tree in their home or place of business, but what I will not support with is the council running a promotion campaign for a multinational company who deal in unaffordable plastic trees,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThese trees don\u2019t even need to be damaged, they could be perfectly usable and you still get an incentive to get rid of them \u2013 we\u2019re providing free advertising for a multinational.<\/p>\n
“I’m encouraging people to shop local for their tree this Christmas and buy direct from one of the farms in the locality, such as farms in Glencullen and the Dublin mountains.\u201d<\/p>\n
Small Christmas tree businesses in the area like Glencullen Christmas Tree Farm are set to open this weekend.<\/p>\n
“We\u2019ve been running for 20 years and it just gets bigger each year,\u201d said owner Jimmy Fitzachary.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople still need real trees \u2013 artificial trees are not good for the environment and people seem to know that \u2013 I\u2019m not worried about the business myself.\u201d <\/p>\n
DLR will run Project reTree as a three-month trial to see how the market responds.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is very important for the rural parts of the county which often gets overlooked when it comes to commercial growth,\u201d said Cllr O\u2019Connor.<\/p>\n
“I stand in full support of our local Christmas tree farms, the sellers and the GAA club and scouts volunteers that collect trees in January to turn them into mulch and wood chip for local use.”<\/p>\n
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A new recycling initiative by D\u00fan Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council allows people to recycle their pre-lit artificial Christmas trees…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":191569,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[14174,18,440,19,17,133],"class_list":{"0":"post-191568","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-environment","8":"tag-azmia-riaz","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-environment","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-science"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115584577324254233","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191568","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=191568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/191568\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/191569"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=191568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=191568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=191568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}