Christmas may be over, but for the crew of farm animals at Kavanagh Farm in Shediac Cape, N.B., this is when they receive the bulk of their presents.
"This time of year, we collect Christmas trees and we feed them to all the critters,” said Charlene Kavanagh. “Everybody eats them. The sheep like the greenery and the goats like to strip the bark."
It’s a chance to re-purpose this year’s Christmas trees and it’s a gesture that benefits both the environment and the group of eagerly awaiting farm animals.
"It's a really good de-wormer for them,” she explained. “So we don't chemically de-worm any of our animals as long as they get enough Christmas trees and pumpkins. [De-wormer] just keeps them healthy. There's parasites that they'll get from eating off the ground, and if they're dewormed, it helps keep those yucky pests away.”
So far this year, the farm has only received one tree dropped off, compared to nearly 20 in years past. The sheep are able to go through an entire tree in about four hours.
“We’ll take as many as we can get because it’s cold out too, it keeps them frozen so they don’t get brown and turn gross,” she said. “We can feed them right until they’re gone.”
“They love it, the sheep are very vocal and they yell at you when they see you coming,” she said.
Meantime in Moncton, Christmas trees are also being disposed of either by dropping them off or putting them at the curb on garbage day.
There’s already a large stack in the Coliseum parking lot, but a lot of the trees won’t end up in the landfill either.
ECO360 has a biomass boiler that is used to heat up the facility and many trees are sent there.
"We have a deal with multiple municipalities in the southeast region, so Westmorland and Albert Counties. They send us their tree, we put them in the wood chipper, use those wood chips to heat up the facility,” said Marc-Andre Chiasson. “It's just a way for us to recycle and all these things not to go to waste."
The program has been going on for several years and is considered a win-win.
"As ECO360, we are the solid waste division of the southeast regional service commission, so handling waste is what we do and we try to do it in a way that is as environmentally friendly as possible,” he said. “Anyway that we can recycle, anything to comes into us, anything that we can divert from the landfill is a good thing for us."
Right now, people have several options to dispose of their Christmas trees in the Moncton area.
Curbside pick-up on their scheduled garbage day is happening the first week of January. There are also several drop-off locations around the city until the end of the month:
- Mapleton Park (Gorge Road)
- Crossman Community Centre
- Crowley Farm Road (ballfield)
- Moncton Coliseum parking lot
- Former Dud James Arena parking lot
They can also drop-off trees directly to ECO360 or the Kavanagh Farm if they’d like to give the animals a little extra treat.
As for the town of Riverview, curbside pick-up on regular garbage day is happening during the week of Jan. 9 and the City of Dieppe will do pick-up on Jan. 11.
