Ellington

The city will be recycling discarded Christmas trees into mulch this year, and will offer the mulch to Jackson residents for free. City Spokesman Chris Mims urged city residents to please remove all Christmas ornaments and trappings from their trees before taking them to any of the tree recycling drop-off points.

Jackson has set-up four spots where you can drop off your tree any time through Jan. 3: Mynelle Gardens (4736 Clinton Blvd.); Parham Bridges Children's Playground (5055 Old Canton Road); Sykes Park (520 Sykes Road); and at the Dizzy Dean Museum (1236 Lakeland Drive), next to Smith Wills Stadium. The city will chip the trees into mulch for free use by Jackson residents; however, Mims asked tree donors to please remove items from the trees such as tree stands, lights and ornaments, and to carefully remove nails, tacks and other metal additions to the wood. Foreign metal bodies in the wood not only destroy chipping blades but also have the potential to become flying shrapnel during the wood chipping process.

"Nails and other metal items can really mess up wood-chipping and could cause injury to our employees," Mims said. "Please be mindful when recycling trees."

Residents can go to the city's park maintenance facility at 4503 Officer Catchings Drive and pick up the free resulting mulch from the Christmas tree recycling program beginning Jan. 19. The mulch will contain no artificial preservatives and is equally safe for crepe myrtles and your hamster cage.

For questions about the tree-recycling program, call 601-960-0000.

The city's regular recycling truck will take the boxes and discarded wrapping paper left over from Christmas morning, so feel free to dump it into your recycle bin. Mims asked residents to be mindful of combination wrappings, such as paper-covered bubble wrap or the cardboard/aluminum composite material sometimes used to contain perishable food items such as fruitcake and other mail-delivered produce. The city's recycling program can not break-down composite wrapping, and it will wind up in a landfill.