With Wilmington being on the coast, the county collects the Christmas trees and uses them to build up and re-establish sand dunes on the beaches. Once established, they plant vegetation to help keep the sand dunes from eroding.
Our litle town has a spot for people to drop off their Christmas trees. The trees are shredded and the mulch is used around the town. I think this is a win/win deal.
No such luck! I don't do Christmas. For one thing, I'm not a Christian; for another I don't like the idea of trees being cut down; for another the orgy of greed and commercialism that is the modern Christmas is offensive even to this atheist who respects Jesus's opposition to exactly this kind of materialism; for another, what the bunny's ear do evergreen trees have to do with Nazareth or Galilee? Now I could get into a good old-fashioned pagan winter solstice sex orgy, if anyone would ever invite me to one.
When I was young we had a medium tree in our house that we kept in the sun room. At Christmas we woudl move it to the living room and decorate it. It was a great tree.
Around here, trees easily fit into the regular curbside yardwaste pickup, to be shredded for compost or mulch. The seasonal slowdown of gardening and yardwork frees plenty of capacity for these trees.
I'm not tied to a religion. However I figure it's an American Shopping Holiday (TM) these days, so I just put lights on a tree that's growing in my yard. No trees chopped down.
We've had our "pre-attached 1,000's of lights" plastic costco tree for about 8 years now. But about 25% of the lights have died. I'm planning on stripping off the copper wire to recycle, and put all the plastic in the recycle can. I hope that doesn't mess with the system.