A CITYWIDE recycling operation of thousands of Christmas trees is under way as Worcester residents do their bit for the environment.

Garden centres and the city council have joined together to offer the opportunity to make sure disgarded Christmas trees do not go to waste.

Hannah Phoenix, assistant environmental protection officer at Worcester City Council, said the campaign was now in full swing.

"Worcester people do care about the environment and recycling the Christmas tree is the best start to the New Year," she said.

"When the skips are full, they are taken to large-scale composting facilities where the trees are shredded and mixed with other green waste.

"They rot down into a compost-like material, forming a soil conditioner which is then sold back to the public at the household waste sites."

Trees collected at Worcester Garden Centre are chipped on site and then used for mulch on their flowerbeds.

Every little helps

"People often think that recycling within the home on a small scale won't mean anything, but every little helps in the war against global warming," said Ms Phoenix.

"As these materials rot in landfill sites they can give off methane, which is one of the gases responsible for global warming and climate change.

"But if it is composted instead, it does not give off the same gases and creates a useful product to improve the quality of the soil."

Worcester was the first place in the UK to offer Christmas tree recycling in 1991 when 70 trees were collected, and the scheme has grown in popularity ever since with over 5,000 recycled last year.

This year's recycling scheme is operating at Worcester Garden Centre on Droitwich Road and the three Homebase stores at Elgar Retail Park, Hylton Road and Bath Road.

There are green waste recycling skips sited at the Bilford Road and Horsford Road household waste sites and people can drop off their trees until Tuesday, January 11.

Adrian Fox of Worcester Garden Centre said up to 70 trees had so far been left and many had already been recycled.

Impersonate Alistair

- recycle your cards

ONE of Worcestershire's favourite sons has helped the Woodland Trust to launch its 2005 Christmas Card Recycling Scheme.

TV impressionist Alistair McGowan has called on everyone to impersonate him and recycle their cards.

"More than a billion cards will have been sent by people in the UK this Christmas," said the Evesham born comic.

"We want to recycle as many of these as possible to raise money to plant more trees and cut down on the amount of waste that traditionally gets binned at this time of year."

Recycling bins will be available at all WH Smith and Tesco stores throughout January.

The Woodland Trust, in partnership with the stores, is running the 2005 Christmas Card Recycling Scheme backed by the new national recycling Campaign, Recycle Now.

"Over 45 million cards were collected and recycled by the scheme last year which helped save the equivalent of 15,000 trees," he added.

This year we want to beat that and recycle 50 million cards - so it would only take each of us in the country to recycle one of our Christmas cards to smash the target."

Penny Pulfrey of the Woodlands Trust said: "We're delighted to team up with Recycle Now and secure Alistair's support to kick-off the 2005 Christmas Card Recycling Scheme. We are hoping that the campaign will be an even bigger success in 2005.