Now that the holiday season is gone. What are you going to do with your dead Christmas tree? You can use the pine needles for mulch. Most of us end up throwing the tired yule tree to the curb for the city to stick it in the wood chipper or add it to the community “treecycling” pile or repurpose it into a bird sanctuary.
While these are eco-friendly ways to say goodbye to this year’s evergreen. None of these solutions are as awesome as the green strategy employed by zoos around the world. Zoo’s from Berlin to Prague to Tennessee give some animals unsold Christmas trees donated from local tree farms and vendors. The critters don’t get the post-holiday discards from the general public. That’s because trees kept in a house could have chemicals or other contaminants on them, and the elephants prefer to eat fresh, moist trees — not the dried-up, crispy fire hazards that many people have up well into the new year. The plants serve as a good (but prickly) addition to the pachyderms’ usual winter diets.
In Hohenwald, TN the annual Christmas Tree Drive collects the trees for The Elephant Sanctuary. The Elephants are given the trees and the festivities begin..
Those who know this stuff say the trees are nutrient-rich, the tree’s needles are said to help an elephant’s digestion. But beyond all that, it’s pretty cool.
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Ralph Bach has been in IT long enough to know better and has blogged from his Bach Seat about IT, careers, and anything else that catches his attention since 2005. You can follow him on LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter. Email the Bach Seat here.