MILWAUKEE — The City of Milwaukee’s Department of Public Works (DPW) has been picking up Christmas trees for years. However, this past February, they were notified by the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) that they were in non-compliance with a state law that’s been in effect since the early 90s.
Since 1993, Christmas trees have been declared yard waste in the state of Wisconsin by the DNR. This means trees are not supposed to end up in landfills.
Milwaukee’s DPW has been collecting trees for years and putting them to landfills. Now, the city is working to comply with the law.
DNR Recycling and Solid Waste Section Manager Kate Strom Hiorns said it all appears to be a miscommunication with DPW.
“In this case, there appears to have been a legitimate misunderstanding, on the part of Milwaukee and possibly other communities, as to whether the statewide statutory ban on disposing of yard waste in landfills includes holiday trees,” Strom Hiorns said. “There is no issue with Milwaukee DPW collecting trees, but under the statute, the trees should not be brought to a landfill for disposal.”
Although DPW is now on board, Milwaukee Alderman Robert Bauman said he is concerned this issue is being brought up now, instead of months ago.
“They were on notice that there was an issue with their current or historic collection of trees,” he said. “So we basically said, ‘What were you waiting for? Why didn’t you tell somebody?”’
Bauman said the responsibility will fall on DPW to collect resident’s trees and compost them. Logistically, this adds more time, effort and resources from DPW, and in the end will cost more money.
“We’re not going to put our citizens to this problem to this burden of trying to deal with these trees on a two-week notice,” Bauman said.
For years, Compost Crusader collected Milwaukee residents’ trees by individual request and composted them. Owner Melissa Tashjian said she’s excited to have the city on board.
“For us, it’s really exciting to know that our whole state is moving in a more sustainable direction,” Tashjin said. “These municipalities are going to be held a little more accountable for the ordinances that are in place.”
However, Bauman said with around 55,000 to 75,000 Christmas trees to pick up within the city, the task will not be a small undertaking for DPW moving forward. DPW is going to have to factor tree collection into the budget for the coming years.
On Tuesday, the Milwaukee Common Council will vote on a resolution to direct DPW to pick up residents’ trees.