London’s Christmas trees get new lease of life

When the Christmas decorations come down, London's streets will be littered with real trees waiting to be picked up by council workers, raising questions about their environmental impact and what can be done to reduce waste.

The industry estimates that around seven million Christmas trees in the UK end up in landfill each year.

In response, a growing number of schemes in the capital are offering more sustainable alternatives.

One option is to rent a live tree rather than buy a cut one.

At London Christmas Tree Rental, all trees are potted and returned after the festive season to be grown for reuse next year.

“Simple: rent, water, return,” said Jonathan Mearns, the company’s founder.

“You can rent from our website, pick your dates, come to one of the centers to pick a tree, water it, bring it back and then it will continue to grow.”

The trees can be purchased from four London centres, including Dulwich in south-east London, and will be sent back to the farm after Christmas.

Some clients reunite with the same tree the following year.

“Sometimes people come and ask, 'Is this really my tree?' says Mearns.

“We get pictures and we compare and they say that’s actually what it is, it’s just that it’s grown a little bit, that’s why people like it.”

“We've been doing this for about four years now,” said one BBC London customer.

“I just like the idea, it’s more environmentally friendly.”

A separate program in Peckham, south-east London, aims to repurpose trees when they are no longer needed.

The ORNA group is working to recycle discarded Christmas trees into building materials.

Hugo Knox, one of its co-founders, said the idea came from personal experience selling real trees.

He said: “Back in November 2019, I left my first job after graduating from university.

“I called one of my close friends, Max. I said, 'Listen, it's Christmas, Christmas trees, shall we try?'”

He said the couple first went door to door in Camberwell offering trees and installations and then expanded the idea into a seasonal business.

“But through this I learned a lot about Christmas tree waste and saw first-hand all this waste on the streets of London, and that led to the creation of ORNA Group,” he said.

According to the Carbon Trust, the environmental impact of discarded trees can be significant.

It says the average real Christmas tree produces around 3.5kg of carbon emissions, but a 2m tree sent to landfill without its roots could have a carbon footprint of 16kg.

The foundation said artificial wood used over several years generally results in lower emissions levels.

Most areas of London have programs that allow trees to be recycled to reduce the amount of wood that ends up in landfill. Information about your council's scheme can be found at London recycles.

At ORNA's workshop, real trees collected from homes and businesses are crushed and combined with natural binders to create new materials.

“When it gets here, it’s largely raw,” says materials scientist Calo Dineen Vanstone, another of the startup’s co-founders.

“The trees come in different forms straight from homes or businesses, but they come here chopped to the right consistency.”

She said the process involved cooking and modifying natural ingredients before combining them with wood waste “to create a homogeneous, wet material.”

The project also works with young people to show how small actions can make a difference.

“We’re not trying to change the world yet,” Dineen Vanstone said.

“But it’s just about trying to make our street corner a little better and trying to do something positive rather than doing something that will negatively impact our future generations.”