Bristol Mandates Booking for 26,000 Annual Christmas Tree Collections
City crews will stop driving random routes to find discarded trees, replacing a system that often left them on streets for weeks.
By Amina Howard ·
Bristol City Council will collect approximately 26,000 discarded Christmas trees this holiday season, but residents can no longer rely on crews to find them by accident. The council is ending a decades-old practice where four garden waste teams drove normal routes to visually scan for trees. Instead, households must now book a specific collection date to ensure their tree is removed.
The previous method was inefficient because crews did not know in advance where trees were located. This lack of planning frequently resulted in missed pickups, leaving trees on pavements for weeks. A committee report noted that the historic approach involved redeploying the four garden waste rounds to drive their routes specifically to look for Christmas trees. The new system provides a list of addresses to crews, allowing them to work in a more organized manner rather than searching blindly.
Residents can schedule their pickup through the Bristol City Council website. The platform assigns a collection date based on the resident's postcode. Bristol Waste officials warn that if residents fail to book, crews may drive past their home even if a tree is placed on the kerbside. This shift aims to eliminate the haphazard nature of the old process and reduce the number of trees left behind after the holidays.
The collected trees are transported to Avonmouth, where they are shredded and processed into compost. Residents must remove all decorations before placing a real tree by the kerb. Plastic trees are not eligible for collection. Any tree taller than six feet must be cut into smaller pieces to fit into the collection vehicles. These rules apply to all bookings made for the upcoming season.
To handle the volume of waste and ensure timely service, the council has scheduled catch-up bin collections over three Saturdays in early January. The dates are January 9, January 16, and January 23. During these days, six extra recycling vehicles will operate alongside the standard fleet. Three additional support vehicles will handle cardboard collections, while three others will assist with general waste in black bins.
Office staff will also be redeployed to support the collection rounds during this period. This extra manpower is designed to keep the service running smoothly as the city processes the large volume of seasonal waste. The coordinated effort between booking systems and expanded vehicle deployment marks a structural change in how Bristol manages end-of-year debris.
