The area in front of LaGrange’s recycling center on Davis Road looked a bit like a Christmas tree lot on Saturday morning, but local fish and plants will be the ones celebrating the evergreen donations as much as the people this time.

Keep Troup Beautiful offered Christmas tree recycling over the weekend, and the trees donated will become local fish habitats and mulch for local plants. Organizers were happy with this year’s turnout for the event, and by noon, Keep Troup Beautiful had had over 20 people drop off trees. When the group packed up at 1 p.m. more than 40 people had dropped off items in all, including more than 20 tires and a variety of old electronics.

“We’ve gotten some electronics,” said Scott Landa, a member of Keep Troup Beautiful’s board. “People brought old computers and things like that, and like I’ve said we’ve gotten just about everything that we can recycle this morning. It’s been good.”

Most of the items donated over the weekend would have likely ended out in the landfill if they had not been brought to the event.

“I appreciate people bringing these tires,” said Howard Mingo, the chairman of the Keep Troup Beautiful board. “It wasn’t that many, but 20 tires off the street means a lot.”

For the group, every event from Bring One for the Chipper to conversations with local school children is about increasing awareness of recycling opportunities in Troup County.

“With being part of Keep Troup Beautiful, we can help the community appreciate recycling,” said Kathryn Adams, a member of Keep Troup Beautiful’s board.

Keep Troup Beautiful was instrumental in the placement of recycling bins along the model mile of The Thread, and the group is excited to see a rise in awareness in the county with programs like curbside recycling in LaGrange.

“I think people’s concern for recycling and litter prevention is getting more because they see the results of not being concerned,” said Ken Pope, a member of Keep Troup Beautiful’s board. “Litter is at an all-time high, so people are getting more concerned about it.”

Even the complaints are somewhat telling of a growing awareness of the impact of recycling in the county.

“We can’t take glass anymore, and it is true pretty much throughout the state of Georgia — I think Forsyth County is the only one that takes glass nowadays — so that is disappointing,” Landa said. “People are really upset about that. People when they are getting rid of their glass want it recycled, and we just have no way of doing that.”

Seedlings were given away at the Bring One for the Chipper event, and people were entered in a drawing. Susan Hall won the drawing for the Creative Call Ins gift basket.

Landa said that littering is still the biggest problem in the county. Keep Troup Beautiful’s next big event will be the local part of the Great American Cleanup, which will seek to tackle at least part of that problem. The cleanup encourages individuals and businesses to take ownership of an area and make their small section of Troup County beautiful, litter free and green.

“As a community, we can do it together,” Mingo said. “We can’t do it by ourselves.”

The cleanup will once again have a big event on Earth Day, April 22, where people across the country are encouraged to join together with Keep America Beautiful to clean up the country. The group hopes that this year several groups will commit to beautification projects that will truly Make Troup Beautiful.

“We are going to go out and solicit groups to pick a project,” Landa said. “It could be a cleanup project. It could be a beautification project, and their responsibility is to accomplish that project at sometime between the beginning of March and April 22.”

For more information about Keep Troup Beautiful, visit Keeptroupbeautiful.com or call (706) 884-9922.