The Unique Way That Chip and Joanna Gaines Recycle Their Christmas Trees
If you're Taylor Swift, you'll leave the Christmas lights up 'til January. If you're a New Yorker like both of us, there's no doubt you've seen Christmas trees awaiting transport to a recycling facility start to pile up along your neighborhood block. But if you live on a farm like Chip and Joanna Gaines, you may have a more unique (but still environmentally-friendly) way of disposing of your Christmas trees.
Jo revealed Friday on her Instagram Story that she had already taken down the decorations from her beautiful live tree for the year. Spotted on the floor next to the endless strings of white lights were the feet of one of her five kids, who thankfully appeared to have helped mom with clean-up duty.
We next see video of Chip, dressed in his signature T-shirt and backwards cap, who sets the tree down on an open field on the couples' farm in Waco, Texas. Why leave your tree on the curb, when you can use it to feed an entire herd of goats instead?
"They've been waiting for this all year," Jo captioned the footage, which cut to a close-up of one of the adorable animals grubbing out.
The Gaines' farm is actually one of many farms across the country which repurpose Christmas trees as goat food, according to the Associated Press. And, wow, do they recycle.
“It takes them a day or two, or sometimes just hours. They eat the bark and everything,” Tami Fulcher Millaway, who owns BnT Farm, told the outlet of her goats. “I had a 14-foot tree last year. They stripped it down. It took them three hours.”
Because real trees are biodegradable, there are many ways in which they can be reused and recycled, including as bird and fish feeders or mulch. For a complete list of ideas, you can check out the National Christmas Tree Association resource guide. But, whatever you do, make sure that you do your part to help the environment.
“A Christmas tree is a living plant, so it has many other uses even if it just decomposes naturally,” Executive Director Tim O’Connor told the Miami Herald. “We know fake Christmas trees will last 1,000 years in a landfill. So the people who don’t want to use a plastic straw at Starbucks realize there are benefits to recycling a real tree.”
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