Last month we suggested three ways to prepare for the holidays while being mindful of our impact on the environmental. Now we offer three tips for making the post-holiday clean-up more sustainable for our environment.

Recycling Your Christmas Tree: The easiest and most environmental thing you can do with a Christmas Tree? Create a brush pile in your yard! A brush pile often consists of leaves, logs, and twigs, so an old Christmas tree can make a great base. It directly benefits the wildlife in your backyard during winter months because brush piles and dead trees offer food and needed protection from the weather.

Alternatively, the township will collect Christmas trees every Monday in January. Please remove all tinsel, lights and decorations from Christmas trees prior to collection. Place trees on your curb, not in the street.

Recycle Wrapping Paper, Greeting Cards, and Gift Bags with Care: Paper items with coatings, glitter, foil, bows, etc. are generally not recyclable and can even jam up expensive machinery. As a rule, if you can scrunch it up and it stays in a tight ball, it is paper-based and can be recycled. Residents can simply place paper-based wrapping paper loosely into the designated blue automated recycling cart for curbside "Single Stream" recycling pick-up. Click here for additional information about Holiday Paper Recycling.

Save Energy on Holiday Decorations: Many homes keep Christmas lights and other decorations up for a few weeks past the holidays. You can save energy by lighting big spaces with LED projectors. You'll save on all those energy-using lights and avoid any potential ladder mishaps as well.

Daylight sensing timers make sure holiday lights are only on when they should be, so none of that holiday spirit goes to waste. Fans for constantly running inflatables are also running up that electric bill. So please use inflatables sparingly.