02/01/2013 - Permalink

Get real and recycle your Christmas tree

Related topics: Community

To make sure they don’t go to waste, Shropshire Council and their contractor Veolia are launching a Christmas tree ‘amnesty’ this year. 

This means that for the first few weeks of January 2013 you can recycle real Christmas trees simply by putting them out for collection along with your garden waste.

All real Christmas trees collected will be ‘recycled’ (actually they get sent for composting) and turned into valuable soil improver for local farmers and gardeners. 

Mike Owen, Shropshire Council’s Cabinet member responsible for waste, said:

“Now that the 12 days of Christmas are coming to an end, decorations will be coming down.  One of the things we need to consider is what to do with the old Christmas tree.  It’s a fact that in the UK we get through 7 million real Christmas trees every year.  This means that there will be around 35,000 dead Christmas trees left over in the Shropshire Council area alone; or to put it another way, one in four households will have a tree that they want to get rid of.  So we urge everyone to recycle their old tree.” 

Top tips 

  • Make sure you put the tree out on the correct day for your garden waste collection. Check your collection timetable via shropshire.gov.uk/binday
  • Make sure your tree is out on the kerbside by 7am as the collection crews start work early.
  • If you can, please try to get the tree into your garden waste bin to make it easier for the collection staff.
  • If you cannot fit your tree into the garden waste bin, you may on this occasion leave the tree next to your garden waste bin, but please take care to avoid blocking the pavement or causing a trip hazard.
  • To help the collection staff handle them and make sure that they fit into the vehicles, please cut up any extra large trees to a maximum 5 foot (1.5m) lengths.
  • Please make sure you remove any tinsel, fairy lights and other decorations first.  These are not compostable.

You can also recycle your Christmas trees by taking them to your local Household Recycling Centre and putting them in the garden waste pile.