Turn your holiday tree into trails and landscaping

LIBERTYVILLE – From holiday cheer to helping nature: recycle your tree.

Give your Christmas tree a second life in your forest preserves. By recycling your real, undecorated tree, you help create wood chips for trails and landscaping that enhance the preserves.

Drop off your tree at one of eight marked sites across Lake County that are open daily from 6:30 a.m. to sunset through Feb. 1. No yard waste or commercial drop-offs are accepted.

Drop-off sites:

• Grant Woods Forest Preserve, 25405 W. Monaville Road, Ingleside
• Greenbelt Forest Preserve, 1110 Green Bay Road, North Chicago
• Half Day Forest Preserve, 24255 Milwaukee Ave., Vernon Hills
• Heron Creek Forest Preserve, 22890 N. Old McHenry Road, Lake Zurich
• Lakewood Forest Preserve’s new location south of Ivanhoe Road near Heron Pond
• Old School Forest Preserve, 28285 St. Mary’s Road, Mettawa

• Ryerson Conservation Area, 21950 N. Riverwoods Road, Riverwoods
• Van Patten Woods Forest Preserve, 15838 W. Route 173, Wadsworth

The Lake County Forest Preserves has been accepting trees for recycling for at least 20 years. Most years more than 1,000 trees are donated.

The majority of the trees are mulched for use on trails. Some are used to create “fish cribs.” Staff members tie several trees together and sink them with a cinderblock in larger lakes, particularly those that formerly were gravel quarries and lack substantial underwater vegetation. These lakes benefit from the fish cribs as they serve as crucial habitats for fish.