Power of SUNY

SUNY ESF Recycles Christmas Tree Into Paper

About 15 percent of the 74-foot Christmas tree that adorned New York City’s Rockefeller Center during the 2010 holiday season was turned into paper at State University College of Environmental Science and Forestry.

The end product was a ton of paper, or the equivalent of 52,000 sheets of regular-sized notebook paper. The paper will be used in commemorative bookplates and promotional materials for a Habitat for Humanity book titled “The Carpenter’s Gift,” which is about the need for people to help each other.

A majority of the tree was used for lumber in a Habitat for Humanity home building in Mahopac in Putnam County. The college obtained the rest of the tree in January and finished processing the scraps of wood into pulp by April.