Recently local charities have started offering to recycle Christmas trees in exchange for a donation.

A leaflet produced in December 2016 by St Richard’s Hospice, Worcester, offered to collect and recycle trees on 13,14 and 15 January 2017, to raise funds for its work ‘and other local charities’.  People wanting to use this service are requested to register online, and suggested donations ranged from £11 which ‘could pay for a Hospice at Home Healthcare Assistant for an hour’, to £25 which ‘could pay for five patients to enjoy a nutritious meal in our Patient Unit’.

In East Sussex, according to the Sussex Express of 30 December 2016, Lewes Barbican Rotary Club would collect and recycle trees on Sunday 8 January from 10 a.m., in exchange for a donation of £5.

Although both organisations say they will ‘recycle’ trees, thus implying that they will in some way reuse them, neither gave details of how this will be done.

Update:  Nick Harris, Facilities Support Co-ordinator at St Richard’s Hospice reported in November 2017 that ‘the collected trees are converted to chippings which are used in the Hospice grounds’.

Image: thrown out Christmas tree, Balham, London Borough of Wandsworth; 4 January 2017.

Updated 19 December 2017.