Where I live Christmas trees must be left in a brown bin (for food and garden waste), to ensure they will be recycled, otherwise they end up in landfill.
It's nearly Twelfth Night, so millions of Christmas trees will be disrobed and thrown away. Some will end up in landfill, while others will be dumped on roadsides, waste land and canal tow paths. Only some will be re-used, or recycled into bark chippings or compost.
Where I live Christmas trees must be left in a brown bin (for food and garden waste), to ensure they will be recycled, otherwise they end up in landfill. I know this because last year I called the council's recycling department and asked. We don’t have a brown bin, so mine and my neighbours' trees were destined for landfill. Cycling to work along the canal, I'd pass dumped trees in various states of neglect – brown, straggly and unloved – and decided my tree would have a second life. I bought it, so I'd take responsibility for it.
The tree spent a few weeks in the garden, looking just as sad as those on the canal. Then I took the secateurs to it. I removed all the branches and gathered them together in bundles for insects to shelter in. The smaller branches I composted (I was amazed how quickly they disappeared).
The tree trunk remained propped up against the shed for six months, until I had a brainwave: I'd use it to make a solitary bee hotel. I got an old wine box, chopped the trunk into pieces, drilled holes in them and then arranged them in the box with some bamboo, sunflower and teasel stems, all from the garden. The last bit of the trunk went into the pond so frogs could enter and exit more easily.
This year I'll use the whole tree to make the bee hotel, without bamboo, sunflower and teasel stems. I think the combination of branches, twigs and chopped trunk will make a varied insect habitat – one which I hope will be used by leafcutter bees to breed in as well as providing ladybirds, lacewings and hoverflies shelter next winter.
Even if I had a brown bin to put my tree in I wouldn't use it now. I try to deal with all my biodegradable rubbish at home and I've never thrown anything out that won't break down eventually. My garden is 4m² but it can take a few rotting Christmas trees. I compost as much as I can, while twiggy material is bundled up and left at the back of the border to break down slowly.
Of course, to be greener still I should have avoided buying the trees in the first place, but my partner is obsessed with Christmas and an artificial tree, or no tree at all,"just wouldn’t do".
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