It was the most fun day of the year at McFarlane’s Bark on Saturday, at least according to manager Tina Castner.
Hundreds of local Boy Scouts drove around Clark County on Saturday collecting Christmas trees and dropped them off at McFarlane’s to be recycled.
“It’s just a real energetic day,” Castner said. “Watching all the kids try to get the trees off their trailers is real goofy.”
Some Scouts climbed into the back of the pickup truck or onto the trailer they used to collect the trees and tossed them into the growing pile. Some bigger trees required two people to carry it over. Lighter trees allowed for Scouts to practice their quarterbacking skills by throwing them like a football.
The Cascade Pacific Council division of the Boy Scouts has run a tree recycling day around the county for more than 15 years, and the event typically brings between 4,000 and 5,000 trees to McFarlane’s, one of three drop-off sites along with West Van Materials Recovery Center in Vancouver and Triangle Resources in Camas.
The Scouts met at various schools around the county and started driving around to collect them at 9 a.m. Around 12:30 p.m., a line of vehicles packed with trees waited to dump them off at McFarlane’s. Behind the recycling services store, some tree piles stood at least 20 feet tall and the overwhelming scent of pine filled the air.
Volunteers used all types of vehicles to collect the trees. While some filled up their trucks or attached trailers to their cars, Patrick Reiter and Chris Toombs rented a 26-foot flatbed truck. They took it out three times on Saturday, collecting 255 trees. In years past, they used their everyday vehicles and trailers for the tree recycling event.
“It’s much easier with the (rental) truck,” Reiter said.
David Cramblett, coordinator with the Columbia Gorge District of the council, said he won’t know how many volunteers participated this year until after the event, but in prior years, the event has brought in more than 400 youth volunteers and 300 adult volunteers in his district. There’s a Fort Vancouver district that also collects trees, which usually doubles those figures.
“Our number one goal is that these trees don’t get put into landfills,” he said.
The trees brought to McFarlane’s are later transferred to the company’s Milwaukie, Ore., location, where the trees will be recycled into hog fuel and compost, according to Castner.
The Scouts also give 40-50 trees to the Salmon Creek Fly Fishers Club, which brings them to the Lewis River and lets all the pines fall off. Then they plant the trees to shade and protect tiny fish from predators.
Cramblett said the event is a big service project for the Scouts. Trees are not the only thing they collect. About seven or eight years ago, they added a coat drive to the event. Now, when Scouts go around collecting trees, people leave coats outside for them. They collect around 600 coats during the drive, which they then give to Friends of the Carpenter, which distributes them to people in need as well as other organizations to hand out.
“Clothing and coats can be pretty significant this time of year,” Cramblett said. “It’s something we can do really easily that helps a lot of people.”
The event is also a fundraiser for the Scouts, as people leave them donations for the event, somewhere between $5 and $30, which the units keep and use for things like scholarships to summer Scouting camp.
Anyone who missed the tree recycling day but still has a tree they’d like to get rid of can call Cramblett at 503-730-6201. He said the Scouts will continue to pick up trees for the next two weeks if they hear from people who are looking to recycle them.
