The City of Winnipeg says less people are recycling their Christmas trees after the holiday season. 

However, the city's Supervisor of Waste Diversion says there is a number of reasons for that and he doesn't believe neglect by Winnipeggers is one of them. 

"We don't have any statistics on how many people have switched to artificial trees but that is one of the leading theories," Mark Kinsley said. "There's also the factor of when we added the larger garbage bins in 2012 people might just stuff them in there, we also added curbside yard waste at that time so people sometimes hang on to them until the spring and include it in their yard waste." 

"We'd love to see the numbers reach back up to when we first started the program and I'm always encouraging that." 

According to the city, Winnipeggers recycled 21,430 trees during the first year of the program in 1991/1992. Since then, numbers have fluctuated and have gone as high as 19,640 in 2000/2001 and as low as 9,414 in 2016/2017.    

Kinsley said they expect to be in the range of 10,000-14,000 trees this year, but he's always hopeful they can break the record. 

"The Christmas trees are just another example of a diversion item and if we can get them away from landfills it prolongs the life of our site, reduces greenhouse gases and has a lot of good benefits to the environment," Kinsley said. "We hear a lot about the environment these days and I'm a believer that every little bit counts."

Kinsley says the trees are usually ground into chips that the public can take and use for tree or plant beds in their yards. 

Winnipeg has 11 tree recycling depots around the city. 

A list can be found on the city's website.