Now is around the time when most households are thinking about taking down their Christmas trees. But when throwing out the old tree, you should always make sure you dispose of it in the right way, says SAKO Brno, the City of Brno’s municipal waste company, to ensure it can be properly processed.
The tree, stripped of its decorations and lights, should be placed next to the mixed waste bin. Placing it inside the bin will take up the space needed for trash bags, which will then be left lying around next to the bins.
If the trunk is larger than 5 cm in diameter, the tree must be cut into pieces of approximately one metre, otherwise the garbage truck will not be able to handle it.
Some people mistakenly put the saplings in the sorted waste containers, but these are collected by special vehicles which are unable to process trees. When placed in the mixed-waste bins, the trees will be picked up by the standard kukačky (‘cuckoos’), which will take them to the SAKO incinerators to be burned with other waste to create energy and heat.
Trees may also be taken directly to the waste collection centre. “We have 35 of them in Brno, so for the majority of Brno residents they are within a pleasant driving distance,” said Michal Kačírek from SAKO Brno. “It’s better for the environment mainly because we don’t take the wood from the collection centers to the boilers, but to the composting plant.”
