Christmas Tree Collection

Every year, on a wet or chilly weekend in early January, you’ll find us out and about, dragging your unwanted Christmas trees off to be recycled and shredded into chippings for composting or green energy generation.

Our annual Christmas tree collection is the group’s only regular fundraising activity, and we ask all parents to get involved.  Each year, we raise a few thousand pounds for the group, while providing a useful and much appreciated service to the local community.  The money we raise helps us to keep our membership fees low, making scouting accessible to everyone in the community and one of the best value activities available for young people in the Weston Green area.  It also allows us to buy, insure and maintain vital equipment including tents, camping gear, minibuses, vans and trailers.

Parents can help in a variety of roles:

• before and during the event, we need people to organise parents and other volunteers into collection teams, arrange vehicles and insurance, check address data, eliminate any uncertainty about tree locations, plan collection routes, take bookings and payments
• on the day, we head out in teams of three – a driver, a navigator and a tree lugger – in our own vehicles and rented vans.  Each team does a four-hour session.  The collection is done in three or four shifts over a single weekend, and we collect around 1,000 trees in that time!

In 2024, a team of 48 parent volunteers worked together to collect 1000 trees between 8am on Saturday and 2pm on Sunday.  We are extremely grateful to Sandown Park racecourse, who generously allowed us to use their land to pile all the trees up.  We used a Surrey-based company, Greenwood’s Tree Contractors, to process the trees.  This year, their ultimate destination was a commercial composting company. After a long, slow process of gradual biodegradation, their nutrient content will eventually be helping other plants to grow.

We have many repeat customers, and they love the service.

• Thank you so much for your reliable and efficient service – J.T., Esher
• Fantastic service, thank you and hope it raised lots for the scouts – G.H., Weston Green
• Perfect service as always – A.R., Thames Ditton

If you’d like us to collect your Christmas tree once Christmas is over, please click here to add your email address to our mailing list.  Booking opens in early November each year.  You can book at www.collectmytree.co.uk.

Relevant documents

Public Liability Insurance Certificate 2024-25

Risk Assessment for Christmas tree collection activities

Waste Carrier Registration