(Picture: PA Wire)
Hundreds of Londoners have been renting Christmas trees in an effort to stop waste and make their holidays green.
The sustainable renting craze, which has expanded from trends in fashion rental services, combats the impact of the seven million Christmas trees that enter landfill every year.
According to the Carbon Trust, re-planting your fir or having it turned into wood chips can reduce the carbon footprint of each tree up to 80 per cent – around 3.5kg of carbon dioxide.
The carbon footprint is more than five times the size for every 2-metre real Christmas tree with roots removed that ends up in landfill, due to the production of methane gas – which is 25 times more potent than CO2.
London borough councils, although offering tree-cycling pick-ups alongside rubbish collection to reduce landfill, also encourage rental options.
London Christmas Tree Rental, a sustainable start-up, has tackled this problem by renting potted trees that people can return to their farms in January.
Customers have the option of renting the same tree next Christmas, depending on its lifespan – while seven-foot trees earn their retirement and are planted back in forests.
Catherine Loveless and Jonathan Mearns, who began their business in 2018, said they were driven by seeing London’s “Christmas tree graveyards”.
Popularity for the business has grown with much of their 2021 stock sold out but options are still available through cancellations, surplus and some “quirky, unlovable” trees left behind.
