You know when Christmas is over – that’s when you see the dead or dying Christmas trees, discarded from the family home and thrown onto the suburban nature or communal strip. By this stage they have gone brown, the needles are dropping off and the stench of dead or dying pine needles can even affect the non-hay fever sufferers to blow their noses and pat down the tears in their eyes.

Seriously folk! what are you thinking (if you are thinking) when you toss these out onto the street? Do you think they will suddenly disappear from your kerbside without you having to pay any money? No. The Christmas elves that helped Santa deliver your presents and help you out with your other Christmas preparations, sadly disappear after the day, and it is up to you to dispose of your smelly festering pine-needle mess. It is not a case of ‘bring out your dead,” a well-known phrase from Monty Python’s “Life of Brian“, based on a phrase supposedly hailed in 14th Century Europe during the Black Plague; complete with bell.

I understand that the ‘pine tree’ is an alternative to the ‘plastic tree’, but the plastic one can be recycled year after year, after year, etc. whereas the ‘green’ alternative requires renewable forests to grow, etc. I don’t care which version you prefer, but if you have a formerly live version which is rotting on your strip, ring up the council and get them to take it away or hire a trailer and take it to the local tip or dump waste area. Don’t leave it for someone else!

• Enough said. BTW our family Christmas tree when I was growing up was based on driftwood collected from the beach – perhaps seen as another form of sustainability in a throw-away society.

This post has opened a new category of art – Rubbish Art.  For further examples see my Rubbish Art page.

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