The presents are opened, Santa’s cookies are eaten, but the tree remains. Now what?

Experts say there are plenty of ways to put Christmas trees to good use after the holidays, so don’t just trash them.

“What we always recommend to people is that they recycle it somehow, and there’s a number of different options,” said Bert Cregg, an associate professor of horticulture and forestry at Michigan State University who focuses on nursery crops and Christmas trees.

One of the best options, he said, is one that’s already available in many towns and cities: Trees are turned into mulch, which is distributed on public land or given to those who want to use it.

New York City runs one such program, using the resulting chips in parks, institutions and community gardens.