Volunteers collected more than 850 old Christmas trees from across Colchester this week – and raised more than £7,000 for charity in the process.
This year’s Christmas Tree-cycle from St Helena Hospice, run in partnership with Colchester Borough Council and JustHelping, saw 861 pre-loved trees taken away from people’s homes and recycled, in return for a donation to the hospice.
The figure was almost three times the number of trees collected last year.
Chloe Winter, fundraising partnerships manager at St Helena Hospice, said: “We are extremely grateful to Colchester Borough Council for giving us the opportunity to run this fantastic event. We want to say a big thank you to the council’s recycling team for all of their time and efforts as well as our amazing team of volunteers who helped collect the trees.
“We would also like to thank everyone who signed up to have their tree collected. We cannot do what we do without donations from the community and we are thrilled with the amount of money raised from the event this year.
“We’re already looking forward to next year’s tree-cycle and hope we will be even more successful than this one.”
Dominic Graham, borough councillor for waste, added: “I’m delighted that even more Colchester residents have supported St Helena Hospice by making a donation to have their real Christmas tree collected.
“Our recycling team will ensure all the trees picked up by the hospice’s volunteers are recycled, along with residents’ garden waste, and so kept out of landfill sites.
“The scheme is a great, green way to start the New Year.”
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