The two groups, along with volunteers from the Valparaiso High School Earth Awareness Club, gathered the trees and unloaded them at the 25-acre wildlife rehabilitation site. MRWRC leaders say the trees will provide cover for birds, chipmunks, raccoons and other small wild animals, protecting them from predators as well as shielding them in harsh weather.

"I would encourage more communities to participate in similar projects," says Aimee House, public relations/education specialist for the Recycling & Waste Reduction District of Porter County.

"Not only did we reuse trees but we also did something positive for our wildlife in the process."

The Chipper program involves hundreds of Georgia communities and thousands of volunteers. Communities have the option of coordinating a pick-up program or relying on designated drop sites; the trees are then turned into mulch that is used for playgrounds, beautification projects and individual yards. The program was first started in the Atlanta metro area in 1987 and went statewide in 1990. Since its inception, the program has recycled 4 million Christmas Trees.

According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, one population of the mice, at Gulf Shores State Park, appeared to be entirely decimated. To rebuild the dunes and restore the fragile ecosystem, volunteers relied on the help of Christmas Trees.

Kelly Reetz, Gulf State Park Naturalist, coordinated a project with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and a number of volunteers to rebuild the dunes. In two days, the group put up more than 3,000 feet of sand fencing, in 10 foot sections, with a Christmas Tree at the base of each fence. The Christmas Trees themselves were a victim of the hurricane - they had been donated to the park by a local Christmas Tree farmer after Hurricane Ivan devastated his crop.

To fight back against the encroaching ocean, Jefferson Parish has been conducting a conservation project since 1986 using Christmas Trees. Over the years, nearly 1.5 million Christmas Trees have been recycled in this way - creating tree fences that combat erosion and slow wave action. Each year the group makes a "tree drop," using a helicopter on loan from the Army National Guard to quickly transport large bundles of trees to the alligator-laden marshes. The project has received nationwide recognition over the years for its impact on the Louisiana coast, even receiving 70 Christmas Trees from the White House in 1997.

Since its inception, the program has created 8 miles worth of tree fences and restored 250 to 300 acres of marshland. During the beating of Hurricane Katrina, these fences were even more valuable. "They worked well and really protected the shoreline behind them," said Marnie Winter, director of the Jefferson Parish Department of Environmental Affairs. "You can see where there weren't cribs (fence-like rows of Christmas Trees at the marsh's edge) the marsh really took a beating."

To recreate a home for the birds, the District, in cooperation with the Citizens for Conservation, uses Christmas Trees to create nesting structures. Annually, the project uses 300-400 recycled Christmas Trees to attract hundreds of pairs of great blue herons, great egrets, cormorants and black-crowned night herons to the rookery.

The program, which has been offered since 1973, allows city residents to drop off their Christmas Trees at 18 locations, or they may leave their trees at the curb for collection. All trees are then recycled into high-quality mulch and compost, which is available to residents at the Miramar Greenery. "By recycling your Christmas Tree, you are doing your part to reduce the amount of material in the landfill and help the environment by giving your holiday tree a second life as compost, mulch or wood chips," explains Elmer L. Heap Jr., director of Environmental Services Department.

The project, which is paid for with the money raised from fishing licenses, drops the recycled trees into lakes, creating "habitat improvement structures" where fish can hide and find food. During an experiment in a Massachusetts lake, state biologists saw a fivefold increase in the number of fish caught around sunken Christmas trees compared to other places in the lake, according to Todd Richards, a fisheries biologist in the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game.

"The reason Christmas Trees are so important is by definition they don't have any invasive species or seeds," David Boen, a Friends of Dunbar Cave board member, told The Leaf Chronicle. "The only mulch, in fact, that Dunbar Cave has is from Christmas Trees."

"We use it as a boiler fuel to power our pulp and paper mill plant," says John Piotrowski, environmental manager at PCA, which manufactures containerboard and corrugated packaging.