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Mayor: City will let ODNR collect Christmas trees to create fish habitat
Summary
The mayor said the city will stop chipping all collected Christmas trees into mulch and instead allow the Ohio Department of Natural Resources to take many of them to sink into ponds and lakes for fish habitat, a reuse step the mayor described as beneficial for aquatic life.
The mayor announced that the Athens Christmas tree pickup program is shifting some material from mulch production to ecological reuse. "They're taken down by the service garage, and then we put them through our chipper and create, you know, mulch," the mayor said, "well, what I just recently learned is that they're transitioning away from that ... and the Ohio Department of Natural Resources can use those ... and they sink them into a pond or a lake ... and it becomes habitat for our aquatic friends."
City crews will continue routine collection; the mayor described the change as a coordination step with ODNR to repurpose trees for fish habitat rather than processing all trees into mulch at the service garage. The mayor framed the practice as an additional outlet for a large volume of trees collected after the holidays, noting the trees have multiple potential destinations.
The announcement did not include a schedule for when ODNR pickups will occur, any volume limits, or whether residents must separate trees for different disposal methods. The mayor also did not supply contact information or a web link for residents to learn which trees will be sent to ODNR versus mulched.
Next steps: the city did not state a timeline for implementation during the update. Residents seeking specifics were directed to the city's usual public works contacts during the program.
