How to Dispose of Christmas Trees in Montgomery County

BETHESDA, MD — If your Christmas celebrations have wrapped up, the tree you carefully decorated is now shedding needles and taking up space.

For Montgomery County residents, you have a couple of options for what to do with those trees.

The county accepts Christmas trees year-round in its curbside yard trim collection for single-family homes and townhomes. Set your Christmas tree at the curb by 7 a.m. on your recycling collection day.

Christmas trees are given a new life after being composted or chipped for mulch, so remove the stand and all decorations, including lights, ornaments, tinsel, and garland. Be sure there is no metal attached to the tree.

Remove any plastic bags from your tree.

“Live” Christmas trees with root balls and artificial trees cannot be collected as yard trim.

You can also recycle branches and needles at home by placing them under trees and shrubs as a temporary winter mulch -- or chop them up and add them to your compost pile.

Wreaths and roping are typically bound together with wire. Wire could damage our shredding equipment. And, pieces of wire would become “contaminants” in mulch.

If you can separate the greens from their wire, bag or bundle them as yard trim, and set them out for collection on your recycling day. Otherwise, dispose of your wreaths and roping as trash.