Boxing Day has come and gone and across Putney, households are beginning to think about when to take down the decorations. For those with real Christmas trees, Wandsworth Council’s Christmas tree recycling collections begin on Monday 5 January and run through 30 January.
Trees should be placed out on your normal collection day, free from all decorations, stands and pots. The council won’t collect plastic trees, decorated trees, trees still in pots, or trees over six feet tall.
For early organisers and those with tall trees, there are ten drop-off points across the borough already accepting trees from now through 31 January. For trees over six feet, Smugglers Way Household Waste and Recycling Centre accepts them with advance booking.
But as you prepare to bid farewell to your tree, have you ever wondered why we bring fir trees into our homes at Christmas? Where did this tradition come from? How many trees does Britain use and recycle each year? And why does it matter how we dispose of them?
The answers connect ancient pagan rituals, Victorian royal influence, and a modern environmental story.
The numbers behind the tradition
Between six and eight million real Christmas trees are sold annually in the UK. That tree standing in your living room is likely 10-12 years old, planted as a seedling a decade ago by one of Britain’s 1,500 to 2,000 Christmas tree farms.
The Nordmann Fir dominates with an 80% market share, prized for its dark green colour and soft needles that stay put. Norway Spruce accounts for 10-15%, offering the traditional pyramid shape and that classic Christmas smell – which a 2004 survey found ranked eighth among favourite British scents, behind the sea but ahead of perfume.
Most UK trees are British-grown. In 2017, only £3 million worth were imported, mainly from Norway. For every tree harvested, growers plant one to three seedlings the following spring. That typical six-footer was grown in a nursery for 3-4 years, then planted for seven years until maturity before it reaches your home, and will be recycled back into the earth from which it grew.
Why evergreens in winter?
The tradition you’re preparing to end this January began over two thousand years ago, in forests far darker and colder than modern Britain.
Long before Christmas trees become fashionable in the UK in the 1800s, ancient Europeans brought evergreens indoors during winter’s darkest days. Romans decorated with branches during Saturnalia, their mid-winter festival. Germanic tribes went further, worshipping trees themselves and decorating them with fruits and candles as offerings to Odin.
In Norse mythology, evergreens were linked to Yggdrasil, the world tree connecting heaven and earth. Fir trees were believed to ward off evil spirits during the 12 days of Christmas, when Odin led his Wild Hunt across winter skies. By the 12th century, the German mystic Hildegard von Bingen wrote that fir trees could protect against “spirits of the air.”
For people without electric lights or central heating, watching a tree stay green through winter’s death represented something profound: life persisting when everything else had died back. The tree was a promise that spring would return.
From German homes to British parlours
The modern tradition of bringing decorated trees indoors began in 16th century Germany. Families trimmed fir trees with fruits, nuts, cookies and coloured glass. Martin Luther is credited with adding candles, inspired by stars twinkling through forest branches.
Not everyone approved. Some clergy condemned it as “heathen tradition” – the Puritan Oliver Cromwell was particularly vociferous. When German settlers brought the custom to America in the 1820s, it was initially rejected. Massachusetts had banned Christmas celebrations until the mid-19th century.
Queen Charlotte, wife of George III, introduced the Christmas tree to England around 1800. But it was her granddaughter-in-law Queen Victoria, married to the German-born Prince Albert, who transformed the tradition into a national phenomenon.
The breakthrough came in 1848 when the Illustrated London News published an engraving of the royal family gathered around their decorated tree at Windsor Castle. The image captivated the British public. By the end of the 1850s, middle-class families across the country were rushing to emulate the royals, decorating trees with wax candles, fruits, sweets and small gifts.
The first advertisements for tree ornaments appeared in 1853. Mechanisation soon enabled mass production of bright, reflective decorations. A tradition that had travelled from Germanic forests to royal drawing rooms was becoming democratised – available to anyone who could afford a tree and a few baubles.
The environmental choice
In 2021, just 19% of people chose real trees whilst 58% opted for artificial. Yet there is an environmental case for real trees.
A real tree’s carbon footprint is approximately 3.5kg of CO2. An artificial tree, mostly manufactured in China from PVC or recycled plastics, has a carbon footprint of around 40kg – over ten times higher. So in carbon terms, you need to use that artificial tree for 5-10 years to produce real benefit.
Real trees absorb CO2 while growing and produce oxygen, although Christmas trees are typically cut down in their “teenage years” just as they are reaching their fullest ability to absorb carbon dioxide. Left to grow the Nordmann Fir reaches full maturity in 20-30 years with a natural lifespan of 200-300 years. They can grow up to 200 feet tall (slightly bigger than your average living room).
Council recycling schemes matter because they turn your tree into compost and mulch for parks and gardens. When your tree is chipped and composted, the carbon it absorbed whilst growing returns to the soil rather than ending up in landfill where it would release methane as it decomposes.
Wandsworth’s recycling: The full details
Kerbside collection: Your tree will be collected on your normal rubbish day between Monday 5 January and Thursday 30 January 2026. A separate vehicle collects trees, so it might not arrive at the same time as your regular bin collection.
Put your tree out after 6.30pm the night before collection, or by 6.30am on collection day. Remove all decorations, stands and pots first.
Where to leave your tree:
- Front garden: Next to your rubbish bags, not on the street
- No front garden: Just outside your front door on the pavement (don’t block the path)
- Flats: Near your bin store (don’t block access to bins)
The council won’t collect plastic trees, decorated trees, trees still in pots, or trees over six feet tall (borrow a saw if it is and chop off the top).
Drop-off points: Ten locations across Wandsworth accept trees from Boxing Day (26 December 2025) through Friday 31 January 2026:
- Acanthus Road, Battersea (parking bays at end next to Grayshott playground, SW11 5TY)
- Battersea Park, Albert Bridge car park (Albert Bridge Road, SW11 4NU)
- Battersea Park, Chelsea Gate car park (Carriage Drive North, SW11 4NJ)
- Cobham Close (large paved area by Bolingbroke Grove next to Pembury Court, SW11 6HR)
- Cortis Road shops car park (paved area underneath shops walkway, SW15 3BD)
- Roehampton Youth Club car park (15 Holybourne Avenue)
- Tooting Common, Dr Johnson car park (SW17 8JU)
- Tooting Leisure Centre car park (Greaves Place, SW17 0NE)
- Nuffield Health car park (Burr Road, Wandsworth, SW18 4SQ)
- Smugglers Way Household Waste and Recycling Centre (SW18 1JS – booking required for trees over six feet)
Full details of collection dates and drop-off locations are available on the Wandsworth Council website.
A moment of reflection
As you dismantle your tree these coming days, take a moment to honour what it represents.
That scent filling your home as you remove the baubles connects you to ancient Europeans celebrating winter solstice, to Victorian families copying their queen, and to something deeper still – the human need to bring nature indoors during the darkest season, to remind ourselves that life persists even when the world seems dead.
The tree standing in your home took a decade to grow. Someone planted it as a seedling, tended it through seasons, shaped it into the form that fitted your living room. It absorbed carbon from the atmosphere, produced oxygen, provided habitat for birds and insects. It was harvested, transported, sold, decorated, admired by your family and guests.
Trafalgar Square’s tree – a gift from Oslo since 1947, commemorating the wartime alliance – reminds us that Christmas traditions continue to evolve. The word “Christmas tree” wasn’t used in English until 1835. Woolworths sold the first manufactured ornaments in 1880. Every generation makes this ancient tradition their own.
This week, as you carry your tree to the kerb or the recycling point, you’re participating in something older than Christianity itself. A tradition that’s travelled from Germanic forests through royal drawing rooms to modern British homes, and will be recycled back into the earth from which it grew, ready to nourish the next generation of trees.
The cycle continues. As it always has.
