Hundreds of Christmas trees turned into £28,625 for Devon children’s hospice

Hundreds of Christmas trees have been collected and recycled across Devon, Cornwall and Somerset this January, raising £28,625.53 for Children’s Hospice South West (CHSW).

Working alongside Biffa, Ringway, The Rotary Club of Bideford Bridge, The Rotary Club of Barnstaple Link and charity partner Just Helping, CHSW once again brought the popular Christmas tree recycling service to supporters, inviting people to book a tree collection in return for a donation. In Taunton, the collection was delivered in partnership with St Margaret’s Hospice, helping even more people take part in the scheme.

All trees collected locally will be shredded into chippings for use in parks and sports clubs, giving them a new, environmentally friendly purpose. Every donation made will help support babies, children and young people living with life-limiting conditions and their families across the South West.

Henrietta Olsson, area fundraiser for CHSW, said: “There has been such a fantastic response to our ‘Treecycle’ campaign this year, and it’s been wonderful to turn so many old Christmas trees into much-needed funds that will make a huge difference to local children, young people and their families when they need support most. We were delighted to collect and recycle 1,663 trees, raising an incredible £28,625.53.

“Thank you so much to everyone who booked a collection. We’d love to expand the service to even more postcode areas in the future as it’s such an easy, green and charitable way to support our hospices. We’d like to say a huge thank-you to the teams at Biffa and Ringway who went above and beyond to support the tree collections once again this year. Thank you also to volunteers from The Rotary Club of Bideford Bridge, The Rotary Club of Barnstaple Link and Kier for generously donating their time to help us collect the trees; we are very grateful for their support.”

This local success forms part of a record-breaking national effort. Charity partner Just Helping has announced that its 2026 Big Christmas TreeCycle Appeal raised an extraordinary £1.85 million for community charities across the UK, the highest total in the appeal’s history. More than 4,000 volunteers collected and recycled an incredible 89,000 trees across England, Scotland and Wales, helping prevent an estimated 1.4 million kilogrammes of CO₂ from entering landfill.