Surprise residents are encouraged to take advantage of free events that will help them conveniently and safely dispose of holiday trees, packing/shipping boxes and documents.

Both paper shredding and cardboard drop-off will be available from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 26 through 28, Dec. 30 through 31 and Jan. 2 through 4 at the Public Works North Yard, 17274 N. Litchfield Road.

Surprise residents can bring up to three banker boxes (15x12x10 inches) of paper to be shredded. City staff will oversee lockable bins for residents to place their paper into and then our vendor will take the bins to be shredded off-site.

Those with large shipping and packaging cardboard boxes that don’t easily fit into your blue curbside recycling can can drop-off them off for recycling. Boxes need to be broken down and empty of all plastic and Styrofoam packaging.

The city has drop-off lots to help dispose of live trees until Sunday, Jan. 12 at the following locations:

• Bi-Centennial Park, 16705 N. Nash St. (south end of the parking lot)
• Surprise Recreation Campus / Youth Baseball Complex, 15795 N. Parkview Place (across from Valley Vista High School)
• Dick McComb Softball Park, 17894 W. Westpark Boulevard (parking lot on the corner of 180th Avenue and Westpark Boulevard)
• Asante Community Park, 16763 W. Vereda Solana Drive (parking lot at the north end of the park)

Remove all decorations before arriving. Only two trees are accepted per household, and they must be placed in designated areas only.

For information, visit surpriseaz.gov/TreeDisposal, or call 623-222-1900.