Over on the city's Official Website there's a list of the four Christmas tree recycling stations accepting your yule logs till January 14. Says nothing about Hanukkah bushes, though, which is a bit of a bummer, since City Hall just sent word it's added an incentive to this year's recycling effort -- a free Houston-made C.E. Sheperd composting bin, which, from the looks of it, retails for around $100 but is made available to municipalities for around $40, say the folks at Sheperd. Well, that's awful nice. Merry Christmas.
Says the release, the city will be handing out the composting bins to folks who bring their trees to the Lovers-and-Greenville Central Market Saturday. Now, you will have to sit through one of two composting classes -- either the 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. -- to get yer freebie. And it is till "supplies last."
I asked Katie Carlin in Sanitation Services who's paying for these. To which she replied: "We bought them with a grant funded by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality," probably out of guilt. She also says those who pre-register will be able to pick up their bins Saturday; everyone else will more than likely wind up with a voucher to pick up theirs at a later date. To pre-register call Joseph Hardy at Dallas City Hall: (214) 671-9233. Or e-mail him. Seriously, though, my wife's been talking for months about getting a proper bin for the backyard. Something about "growing our own"?