THE amount of real Christmas trees collected and recycled in Pembrokeshire has tripled in the last five years, new figures have shown.

More than 1,200 trees were collected from people’s homes in 2020, compared to around 400 trees in 2015.

All the trees are taken to Pembrokeshire’s local civic amenity and recycling centres and recycled into woodchip.

The collections are organised thanks to a joint project by registered charity and social enterprise Pembrokeshire Frame and Pembrokeshire County Council.

Cllr Cris Tomos, Cabinet Member for the Environment and Welsh Language, said: “More than 10 tonnes of woodchip has been created as a result of collecting this year’s trees, which will be recycled locally into compost.”

He added that he was delighted that the Council’s partnership with Frame was working so well.

“The initiative is clearly growing more popular and we are looking forward to it going from strength to strength as more people become aware of it,” he said.

Neil Hulme, Operations Manager at Frame said: “With the environment at the forefront of the world’s agenda, we are extremely happy to play our part as a whole team effort in supporting the local authorities drive to increase recycling in any way that we can.

“This contract is an additional activity to our current recycling and reuse initiatives in partnership with Pembrokeshire County Council”.