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By Henry Bryant
On January 5, the wood chipper and hundreds of Christmas trees returned to Grant Park for its 27th year of post-season Christmas tree recycling. The Grant Park Conservancy sponsored the event in the park, where the Atlanta Parks Department chipper handled 520 trees. The event was part of a statewide effort known as “Bring One for the Chipper!” sponsored by Keep Georgia Beautiful and the Georgia Department of Community Affairs. The mulch from the chipped trees will help prevent erosion and keep moisture in the ground around plantings in Grant Park during 2014. Mulching the trees also saves space and waste costs at the landfill by providing a sustainable alternative.
“Bring One for the Chipper” actually began in Grant Park 27 years ago. I was Chairman of the Atlanta Clean City Commission, and Pat Canakaris was its director back in 1986. It was at a meeting at Pat’s house on Glenwood Avenue where the event was first discussed. There had been a tree recycling program for beach erosion at Keep America Beautiful organizations in other states. People thought we were crazy for considering it here. However, it made complete sense for Atlanta, because so much of our waste stream is yard waste. Plus, the city did not have a recycling program for household waste and was considering firing up the incinerator since we were closing the city landfill. The tree program was seen as a way to introduce wider recycling and composting in the city.
With the catchy slogan, the Clean City Commission partnered with Fulton Clean and Beautiful bringing the northern suburbs into the effort and with that, more media attention. The Atlanta Dogwood Festival also joined along with the Georgia Forestry Commission to provide a fungus-resistant Koosa Dogwood sapling for every tree recycled. The first event was a huge success.
After that Dekalb, Cobb, and Gwinnett Counties joined the fun. Then following another success or two, the outlying counties joined in and WXIA became a media sponsor. Then 23 years ago Keep Georgia Beautiful decided to take “Bring One for the Chipper” statewide. From the small seed of an idea that was planted in Grant Park, a successful reality has blossomed.
Atlanta’s mature Dogwood trees had been hit hard by disease and were in danger of being wiped out. Now, we see many mature Dogwoods in the Porch Press area that were planted by Christmas tree recyclers back then. Tens of thousands more have been planted across the metro area. Hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of Christmas tree mulch have enhanced public parks.
This year the mulch was spread in Grant Park during a recent workday. Next up on the Grant Park Conservancy schedule will be Phoenix Flies tours on every weekend in March. Details are available about the tours at www.gpconservancy.org or www.atlantapreservationcenter.com, or by calling 404-688-3353.
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