Christmas is over, New Year’s has come and gone, which means it’s high time for hundreds of thousands of Sonoma County residents to get rid of their Christmas trees.
Elsewhere in California, discarded trees end up in the same place as the rest of the garbage: the town dump. Here, however, thanks to the Sonoma County Waste Management Agency, our trees are, at least in many cases, composted into mulch (for those of you who don’t know, mulches are applied to the surface of the soil to reduce erosion, suppress weeds, conserve water and improve soil structure).
Applying mulch. Photo from Sonoma Compost.
The county outsources most of this work to a company named Sonoma Compost Company. The process occurs at the firm’s retail yard (which, by the way, is open to the public) at 550 Meacham Rd., in Petaluma. According to Soil Scientist Will Bakx, the ritual is comprised of four basic steps:
1. Before grinding non-compostables are removed.
2. The material is then ground up and placed into long piles (18 feet wide, 7 feet high and several hundred feet long) to compost.
3. The material heats naturally, through microbial action, to more than 131 degrees Fahrenheit (as required by regulation) to destroy potential disease and viable weed seeds.
4. The material is turned frequently, and after 15-20 weeks the mulch is finished.
Once the mulch is done, just about anybody can swing by the Meacham Road facility and pick some up for their gardens. Prices vary depending on how much you buy; they start at $13 per cubic yard.
While Bakx wouldn’t speculate how many trees might make it into mulch this year, it’s nice to know our Christmas trees can have a second lives helping the environment (especially since hard-core environmentalists/tree-huggers take issue with the Christmas tree industry for killing so many trees).
All told, Sonoma Compost Co. has diverted about 1.2 million tons of organics from the landfill since it started at Meacham Road in 1993. Through this process the company has conserved landfill space, avoided a significant amount of greenhouse gas production, while supplying the residents of Sonoma County with a valuable resource to improve our soils. For more information, call 707/578-5459.
