Christmas Tree Recycling event raises £13,500

Earlier this month, volunteers from the Heart of Kent Hospice in Aylsford were out on the road collecting over 650 Christmas Trees from residents in and around the boroughs of Maidstone and Tonbridge and Malling as part of a Christmas Tree recycling initiative which has raised £13,500 for the Hospice.

The event was generously sponsored by Compare & Recycle, the UK's number one mobile phone recycling comparison site.

Residents were able to go to the Hospice website and book for their tree to be collected over the first weekend in January. Volunteers used a fleet of vans to pick up the real Christmas trees from individual addresses before environmental partners The Gallagher Group and the National Trust’s Igtham Mote chipping the trees to use around their estates.

This was the first year that the Hospice has worked with Ightham Mote who were able to chip approximately 300 of the trees. One trailer load of the chippings were donated to local primary school, Weald Community Primary School in Sevenoaks, for them to use in their forest school play area. The rest of the chippings will be used around the estate at Ightham Mote.