VIDALIA — After Christmas, along with the torn ribbons, demolished boxes and miles of shredded wrapping paper, there’s another piece of trash that has to be taken out — the Christmas tree.

In some parts of the Miss-Lou, it’s not much of an issue to dispose of a tree.

“If they will put the tree by the road, we will pick it up,” Ferriday Town Clerk Gayle Cowan said.

The customers of Waste Management in Natchez will have a similar arrangement, and Vidalia Street Manager Lee Staggs said all Vidalians will have to do is place the tree by the road.

“We will chip it up right by the road where they put it,” Staggs said. “We chip it and take it to our landfill.”

Concordia Parish Police Jury President Melvin Ferrington said that the customers of Diamond Disposal — which has the parish waste removal contract — likewise only have to place the trees by the road, and that they don’t have to worry about cutting a normal-sized tree into pieces.

“They may have to cut the huge Christmas trees up, but a regular 6-foot to 8-foot Christmas tree, they will pick up,” Ferrington said.

Some people may want to chip their trees themselves for much, and residents of the unincorporated areas of the Concordia Parish and Adams County can always use the tree for a New Year’s Eve bonfire.

But sportsmen might want to save their tree for another use, fisherman Eddie Roberts said.

“We tend to sink (Christmas trees) in the lake for fish habitat and cover,” he said.

The only advice Roberts had for those who might decide to place a trees in a local lake for the first time is to stay with in the shallow places.

“On a lake like Lake Concordia, you rarely catch a fish (in water) deeper than 10 feet,” he said.

“I’ve wasted so many Christmas trees through the years on the deep water.”