By Dan Klepal
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Environmentalists are urging that instead of tossing the mountain of holiday gift wrap, cardboard, cans and bottles in the trash this week, celebrants recycle it.

Americans produce an additional 5 million tons of garbage between Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. The number of holiday cards alone is enough to fill a football stadium 10 stories high.

"We encourage people to think more about their garbage at Christmas time, because there's a lot more of it," said Paul Braasch, administrator of the Clermont County Solid Waste District.

Counties in Greater Cincinnati offer residents several recycling options for trees and other holiday trimmings.

Hamilton County and the city of Cincinnati offer four recycling drop-off sites that accept paper and cardboard on Dec. 29. Two of those sites accept Styrofoam peanuts, a popular packing material. The sites are also open the first Saturday of every month.

Dana Storts, director of the Warren County Solid Waste District, said her county doesn't offer any free drop-off recycling sites for paper and cardboard. She hopes individual townships will offer curbside programs later next year.

"The best thing is to just reuse them," Storts said.

Individual municipalities in Butler, Warren, Clermont and Hamilton counties offer free pick-up of Christmas trees through mid-January.

Experts also ask people to hold off on throwing away old cell phones or computers after finding new gizmos and gadgets under the tree, said Shirley Phillips, program assistant with Keep Cincinnati Beautiful. Such electronics contain toxic materials.

Used cell phones can be dropped off at paper recycling sites, where they will be refurbished and donated to the elderly or homeless shelters. Hamilton County will offer a computer-recycling program April 15-16 at which people can drop off their computer, or computers, free of charge.

Christy Kellner, business specialist with the Hamilton County Solid Waste Management District, said the service is available to businesses and individuals alike. Anyone participating will have to fill out a registration form, which will be available the first week of January. Kellner said computer recycling is an important service for the county to offer, since most monitors and CPUs can't be placed in landfills because of high levels of lead.

"They also contain mercury, even the flat screens," Kellner said. "They also contain other heavily regulated metals, and it's illegal to throw them in a Dumpster."

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E-mail dklepal@enquirer.com