Karen Harris-Shultz with KTB giving out seedlings.

TIFTON — Approximately 30 trees were collected during Keep Tift Beautiful’s Bring One for the Chipper event Saturday. 

KTB members, armed with heaters and hot chocolate against the cold, were at the park from 9 a.m. until 1 p.m., collecting trees and giving away white oak, red bud and dogwood seedlings and seed packets.

Dave Hetzel, who’s been involved with KTB for as long as the organization has been founded, said they hold this event every year on the Saturday after New Years.

“Folks can bring in what were live trees, not artificial ones, right here to Fulwood Park in the middle of town and drop them off,” he said.

Hetzel explained that the City of Tifton’s public works department will grind up the trees and make mulch.

“That of course goes back into the ground,” he said.

The mulch, which will take over a year to cure properly, is used as a ground cover or a soil supplement.

“We don’t throw anything away,” he said. “We try to use everything.”

Hetzel said that it was important to recycle and take care of the environment.

“We only have so much and we have to take care of it, particularly on the water end,” he said. “Anything we can keep out of the landfill, we want to because it costs millions of dollars now to build new cells for your landfill. So anything that will biodegrade we want.”

The mulch is available for free to residents at the landfill.

Follow Eve Guevara on Twitter @EveGuevaraTTG.