East Cheshire Hospice Christmas Tree Collection

each january volunteers from the christmas tree collection set out in a fleet of vans to collect pre-booked spent christmas trees from households in the cheshire east council area. these are then mulched and recycled in a resposible manner. the donations received are sent as fundraising income to the local east cheshire hospice. since 2000 a net sum of nearly £500,000 has been given to the hospice by supporters of the christmas tree collection since 2001. in january 2014 the collection raised a net sum of about £72,000 from over 5500 trees which amounted to over 61 tonnes of mulch. over 30 vans and over 120 helpers each day achieve this. the scheme has been promoted to a number of other hospices in the uk and in 2014 another 12 collections were in operation.