By Rebecca Henely
The city Parks Department said last weekend’s MulchFest, in which residents could drop off their Christmas trees at neighborhood parks to be chopped up, collected 3,320 trees in Queens.
The number exceeded last year’s MulchFest, which took in 2,741 trees.
“The event is usually a very good event,” said a Parks official at Brookville Park Saturday. “People take stuff off trees, follow directions.”
Mulchfest is an annual Parks Department event held in conjunction with the city Sanitation Department and GreeNYC. Residents were encouraged to take their trees to a drop-off spot around the city Saturday or Sunday to be put in a wood chipper and turned into mulch.
The Rosedale MulchFest, which took place in the park on Brookville Boulevard near 144th Avenue, had collected about 80 trees as of about 1:15 p.m. Saturday, 45 minutes before MulchFest ended for the day. Volunteers were on site to collect the trees as well as shovel the mulch into bags for residents.
The Parks Department also collected trees at Astoria, Cunningham, Juniper Valley, Kissena, Roy Wilkins and Travers parks, as well as Forest Park Bandshell, Playground 203 in Oakland Gardens, Rockaway Beach and the Land Restoration Project Compound in Long Island City.
