The holiday season generates plenty of generosity and cheer, but can also bring a lot of waste in the form of food, decorations and more.

Local Boy Scout troops are banding together again this year to divert trees and broken holiday lights from the landfill.

At the Federal Way City Council meeting on Dec. 5, local Boy Scout Owen Russell shared about the event during public comment.

“Last January, we held our very first Christmas tree recycling event at Celebration Park,” Russell shared. “With the help of the city of Federal Way and Boy Scout Troops 330, 307 and 361, we were able to collect and dispose of Christmas trees from our community through both a drop-off service at the park and also a pickup program around Federal Way with the help of our adult volunteers.”

Russell added that “we are excited to let the council know that we’ll be offering the service again this coming January with partners at the city and Rainier Tree Recycling.” Their goal is to “turn it into an annual event to both benefit our community and our environment.”

To participate, Federal Way residents can register ahead of time to have their trees picked up on Jan. 3 between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m., or drop off the trees in person during the event itself. They will be available on Jan. 6 and Jan. 7, between 9 a.m. and 3 p.m., at Celebration Park. The troops will also be collecting broken or damaged holiday lights to be recycled.

Food waste

There are so many opportunities to do good during the holidays, and one of the easiest is to practice reducing food waste and sorting your trash.

“Holidays center around food, and you’ve got a lot of people who don’t cook regularly,” Jackie Lang of Waste Management told The Mirror. “There can be so much focus on simply getting the food to the table that it can be easy to end up wasting a lot of it in the process.”

This food waste can add up. On the King County waste management website, the county shares: “Businesses and households in King County in 2019 threw out enough edible food to feed everyone in Kirkland – about 92,000 people – for an entire year.” They remind people that “food production requires large amounts of resources, particularly water and energy, while creating significant greenhouse gas emissions. If food is not eaten and ends up at the landfill, its decay can create methane, a potent greenhouse gas.”

“If it reaches our bodies, that’s the desired goal, but if for some reason it doesn’t, it can become something special and sustainable for the rest of the planet,”

Waste Management shared some tips that can be helpful when it comes to reducing food waste around the holidays.

• Have to-go containers ready to send leftovers home with people.

• Grab some masking tape and a pen to write “eat by” dates on your holiday food to make sure you eat it in time.

• If you have family helping out with cooking, especially people who don’t typically compost, make sure to explain what goes where and have waste receptacles out and easy to use.

• If you’re cutting down on dishes by using disposable, try using compostable plates and utensils or at least stay away from foam packaging.

• Print out compost guides near your trash so that it is easy to visually see what goes where.

• Make sure you’re looking at the Federal Way guide for what is accepted for food and waste collection.

“Keeping food scraps out of our landfill is an important action that residents can take to reduce waste and the impacts of climate change,” said Emma Keese, Public Education and Outreach Specialist in the Federal Way Environmental Services department. “Reduce your food waste this holiday season by pre-planning meals, storing food appropriately to keep it fresh longer, freezing leftovers, and putting any food scraps in the compost, not the trash. Reducing food waste also saves you money and helps the environment, making it an easy win-win.”

Waste Management reports the benefits of composting are extensive, explaining that it’s a nutrient rich soil amendment, it acts like a sponge and helps retain water, it’s full of biodiversity and adds a network of microbes and fungi that bring dead soils back to life.