REMINDER: Recycle Your Christmas Tree at Maria Hernandez Park for MulchFest

BUSHWICK, BROOKLYN — It's not too late to give your Christmas tree a new environmental life. The city's Christmas tree recycling program, MulchFest, is coming this weekend to Bushwick's Maria Hernandez Park.

MulchFest is going to be a big deal this year as the official GreeNYC mascot, Birdie, will be present at the chipping ceremonies, along with local politicians. There will also be a Periscope livestream and the first-ever MulchFest 360-degree live video.

It's the 21st year of MulchFest, which was established as a fun way to recycle your Christmas trees into woodchips that will be put in tree beds, gardens, and playgrounds throughout NYC.

This year, it takes place on Jan. 7 and 8 from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 30 chipping sites and 48 drop-off sites in public parks in all five boroughs. The benefit of going to a chipping site is the city will chip your tree and give you a bag of mulch you can take home for yourself.

The sanitation department is also picking up curbside trees until Jan. 14.

The Parks Department makes it mandatory to remove all lights and ornaments from the tree before dropping it off at a site or curbside.

You can watch MulchFest at http://periscope.tv/nycparks or follow NYCParks on Periscope to participate in the live broadcast of the MulchFest kick-off, or watch archived videos at katch.me/nycparks.

Find out more information here, as well as all the MulchFest locations in the five boroughs.

Photo credit: Ryan Vaarsi/Flickr/CC by 3.0