Festive firs get the CHOP at annual recycling day in Dacorum

The annual event has been running for 24 years, and allows families to give their festive friends the chop at chipping points in Hemel Hempstead, Berkhamsted and Tring.

Chippings were available for residents to take away to reuse in their gardens as a weed preventative. The remaining chippings will be recycled into compost.

Some residents brought in trees that were still alive and potted in soil, with their roots intact.

These trees were not chipped - 10 were rescued by fellow residents who took them for a new life in their gardens and the eight others have been saved so they can be planted around the borough by our Clean, Safe and Green team.

Residents are encouraged to keep trees that have their roots attached and plant them in their garden ready for next year - or offer it to someone else who will be able to give it a good home.

Local Scout groups also ran a tree-collection service for residents who were unable to bring their trees to a chipping point themselves. Scouts from Berkhamsted, Tring, Potten End, Kings Langley, Gossoms End, Northchurch, Wilstone and Long Marston collected nearly 2,400 trees.

Members of the public visiting the Hemel Hempstead site at Cupid Green Depot saw the mountains of recycling that had been collected over the three-week festive period (the weeks before, during and after Christmas).

During this time, Dacorum residents threw away a total of 2,250 tonnes of waste. This is up 10 per cent on what was disposed of over the same festive period last year. Nearly two thirds of this waste was recycled in either blue-lidded bins or food waste caddies.

However, a third of this was disposed of in the grey bins - which is sent to landfill and incineration, instead of being recycled.

We're encouraging residents to make an eco-friendly resolution to ‘reduce, reuse and recycle’ as much as possible. Our Green 2020 page is full of useful hints and tips.

Residents can still recycle Christmas trees at the Household Waste Recycling Centres in Eastman Way in Hemel Hempstead or in Northbridge Road in Berkhamsted.

Trees must not be left at any of the borough’s other recycling sites as this will be treated as fly-tipping.

Alternatively, trees can be cut up and stored in green bins ready for garden waste collections to begin again in the spring.