For a few days they’re called O Tannenbaum, but then they’re trashed.

Each year, Lawrence residents — and millions of other Americans — buy Christmas trees. But what becomes of the forests of discarded trees once the holiday cheer has subsided?

In Lawrence, they return as homes for rabbits, foxes and birds.

City crews spend the first three Mondays after Dec. 25 collecting the thousands of castoff trees.

“We’ve done it this way nine years,” said Bob Yoos, the city’s solid waste manager.

The trees are then taken to a site — known to many as the “old city landfill” — on the northwestern edge of Riverfront Park in North Lawrence.

“We use them to create wildlife habitat — that’s the goal,” Yoos said. “Over the years, the needles fall off and they start to break down, but that’s about the time we bring in more.”

Yoos said crews collected between 2,000 and 3,000 trees each year.

At the site, the trees are pushed into three 100-yard-long rows, creating a dense thicket that’s an ideal habitat for birds and other wildlife.

Diana Sjogren, a waste reduction and recycling specialist for the city of Lawrence, adds a stray Christmas tree to a row of discarded trees on the northwestern edge of Riverfront Park in North Lawrence. The trees are used to develop wildlife habitat. City crews will pick up Christmas trees Monday and Jan. 12.

Yoos said the area was open to the public, but neither vehicles nor hunting was allowed.

“It’s a pretty long walk,” he said.

There weren’t many trees there Wednesday — dozens, rather than the hundreds or thousands that will later appear.

“That’s because the first Monday (Dec. 29) was so soon after Christmas,” Yoos said. “A lot of people like to keep their trees up until New Year’s or that weekend. I suspect we’ll pick up 10 times this many (Jan. 5).”

Yoos encouraged homeowners to remove tinsel, decorations and ornaments before leaving their trees on the curbing.

“I’d also like to ask folks — if they use those plastic bags that catch the needles when they take the tree outside — to not leave the bag pulled up over the tree, please,” Yoos said. “We have to take those off, and it really slows things down. They’re trash, so just throw them away.”

City Christmas tree recycling

One more thing: Be sure to remove the stand.

“It never ceases to amaze me, every year, how many perfectly good Christmas tree stands get thrown away,” Yoos said. “It’s like people forget they’re there.”