By Ashley FILIPEK

Entering the holiday season usually means lots of decorations, Christmas trees, presents and lights. Most families have designated boxes and storage space in their garage for the reusable decorations, but it’s not always clear how people are supposed to dispose of their Christmas trees.

Both the City of Glendale and County of L.A. have arranged tree pick-up or drop-off locations to take care of all the Christmas trees.

The City of Glendale Integrated Waste Management Division is offering a free curbside recycling program from Dec. 26 through Jan. 18. Each year the City of Glendale provides a special program to collect Christmas trees on the curb from the first working day after Christmas until the middle of January. The city’s Public Works website states, “The City of Glendale Integrated Waste Management Division will not provide refuse collection on Dec. 25 or Jan. 1. Between Dec. 25 and Jan. 4, customers with Tuesday through Friday refuse collection will be serviced one day later. For example, customers with Tuesday collection will be serviced Wednesday, and customers with Friday collection will be serviced Saturday. Monday refuse collection will not be affected.”

In order to have the Christmas trees recycled, all ornaments, decorations, nails, buckets, bags, and stands must be removed. Both tinsel and flocked trees are acceptable. Trees greater than eight feet tall should be cut in half. For single-family homes, trees should be placed next to refuse on the designated service day. For apartments and businesses, trees should be placed together in the parkway by 7 a.m. on service day (beginning at 7 p.m. the night before).

Residents throughout L.A. County can have their trees picked up for recycling, or in some areas can go to designated drop-off locations. Most of the cities in L.A. County have requested that residents remove ornaments/decorations, tinsel, plastic containers, metal/plastic/wood stands, nails, and lights. In most cities, flocked trees will be accepted. The Christmas trees can be placed at curbside next to the recycling and waste containers on scheduled trash collection day(s) during the designated time period.

Burbank will offer curbside pick-up Jan. 2 through Jan. 20, and also has two drop-off sites available from Dec. 26 through Jan. 20.

La Cañada Flintridge will have curbside pick-up from Dec. 26 through Jan. 14. Trees over six feet tall must be cut down to six feet.

Pasadena will provide curbside pick-up from Dec. 27 through Jan. 13, and will have two drop-off locations available from Dec. 27 through Dec. 31 from 7 a.m. to 2 p.m. All of the specific information can be found on the L.A. County Dept. of Public Works’ website http://ladpw.org/epd/xmastrees/index.cfm.

  Ashley FILIPEK