Christmas tree numbers increasing in Bratislava

The number of collected Christmas trees is increasing over the past few years, according to statistics from Bratislava's waste removal and disposal firm OLO, the SME daily wrote in a Tuesday article. In 2014, the company collected 84 tonnes of trees, in 2016 it was 99 tonnes and in 2017 it was more than 112 tonnes. Christmas trees are used in different ways after they are thrown away from households. The city of Banská Bystrica uses the trees to generate heat through burning biomass or to restore benches, for example. In Kosice and Nitra, they end up in the local composting plant where they are turned into wood chips. "The trees in Bratislava are sent to a crushing mill where they are crushed and sent to a waste incinerator where they burned," OLO spokeswoman Beata Humeniková explains. The capital thus produces heat and electricity which the city further distributes to the grid and supplies to about 22,000 households.