By KLTV Newsdesk
Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice and Kirkwood Hospice are working with Kirklees Council to give your real Christmas tree a new lease of life once it’s time to shine is over.
The charities are offering a Covid-safe, contact-free collection, so there’s no need for any extra hassle, and it’s doing something good for the environment.
Not only will it save you a trip to the tip, or the cost of a bulky household waste collection, each tree collected will be recycled saving it from landfill.
For their part, the council says will be providing two vans with staff members for each charity to help with the collections, as well as chipping the trees so they’re ready for re-use.
Community Support
They are also encouraging their staff to volunteer to help support the collections, as all council staff can take two days paid leave to volunteer in the local community.
All trees collected will be chipped before making their way back out to help the local community in a variety of ways.
Some will create footpaths at Storthes Hall Park, others will help to keep the cows out of the mud at the Yummy Yorkshire farm, some will go to local football clubs to edge the pitches, and some will be available for residents to use on their allotments.
Any leftover trees will be turned into renewable energy through composting.
Money Raised
Last Christmas almost 1500 trees were recycled in Kirklees, raising around £14000 for these fantastic charities.
Each charity is slightly different but for a donation of around £10 you’ll not only have your tree collected but you will also help to fund their vital work.
‘Environmental Impact’
Speaking on the initiative, Cllr Naheed Mather, Cabinet Member for the Environment, said: “We all tend to make more waste at Christmas, but together we can take small steps to help reduce our environmental impact.
“Recycling your Christmas tree is one way you can make a difference.
“Not only does the ‘treecycling’ programme make it easy to recycle your tree by supporting one of these two local charities you are making a difference in the local community too.”
How to get involved
Forget Me Not Children’s Hospice will be collecting trees across all of Kirklees and selected additional postcodes.
The Kirkwood will be collecting in; HD1, HD2, HD3, HD4, HD5, HD8, HD9 (excluding HD9 2), WF14, WF15, WF17 & BD19
Registrations close at midnight on Monday 4 January.