Happy New Year!

We’re back and we’re full of fun plans for making 2011 a great, green, year – starting with the great yoyomama goodie giveaway with over $2K of prizes to be won. This week we’ll be full of good ideas to get your year off to a great start, starting with ideas for cleaning up the detritus of Christmas so you can pack it all away and move on into the New Year:

Ready to take down your once shiny, now shedding Christmas tree? Throughout January, the City will pick your tree up curbside on your scheduled garbage collection day. For garbage collection schedules in Toronto, check out the City’s collection calendar or call 311.

Now before you put that tree to the curb, make sure to remove all decorations, including tinsel, hooks, tree bags, and stands, and clear it of any snow or ice. If you miss getting your tree out in January, you’ll need to hang on to it until yard waste collection starts up again in March, or you can bring it to a transfer station for disposal.

An estimated 100,000 Christmas trees are collected every year in Toronto. The recycled trees are shredded into compost mulch, which is then used as summer cover for plants and gardens throughout the city. If you want to recycle your tree in your own backyard, here are a few green ideas from www.christmastrees.on.ca:

• Placed in the garden or backyard, the Christmas tree will provide winter shelter for small birds. Another good idea is to decorate the tree again. This time hang it with special treats for the birds: Orange slices will attract birds, as will peanut butter spread on tree seed cones; or hang suet balls stuffed with sunflower seeds. If you set your tree outside for the birds, remember to carefully remove all tinsel. Birds will try to eat the shiny stuff and it will make them sick.

• Fir tree foliage can be stripped from the branches and snipped into small pieces for stuffing into aromatic fir needle pillows for the sofa or bedroom. Some people also use fir foliage in dresser drawers to give clothing and blankets a fragrant aroma.

• Sunk into fishponds, Christmas trees make excellent refuge and feeding areas.

• Woodworking hobbyists can make a multitude of items from the trunk of a used Christmas tree including buttons, gavels and candleholder.

And we’ve mentioned reusing your holiday cards before but we just wanted to remind you that you can save this year’s cards and cut them down to make next year’s gift tags or to decorate next year’s packages. Wrapping scraps can be used for craft projects and red paper can be saved for Valentine’s Day crafting. And here’s a whole heap of ideas for crafts you can make with leftover cardboard boxes.

As for the chocolate and other treats lingering in your cupboards, we’ll leave “cleaning” those up to you.

Here’s to a wonderful 2011!