Floodings happen all the time and in order to avoid this from happening in the future, a woman from Yorkshire thought about what to do. She came to realize that there are actually thousands of Christmas trees go to waste every single year.
Instead of doing something about these trees, people simply cut them up and throw them into the trash where these are left to rot on their own. In reality, these trees could actually be used as natural flood protection. Hence, this enterprising lady started a unique business just for this purpose.
She started the Rooted Christmas tree rental and what this does is deliver a potted Christmas fir, pine, or spruce to a family when the holidays come around and the decorations are about to be set up. Once the lights are taken down and the tree needs to be removed, the company collects these rentals and replants so that these plants get to see another Holiday season.
During the replanting, the trees are able to grow taller and when they reach full growth, they are replanted on the slopes of the nearby Calder Valley. These then become natural floodwater breaks when the rainy season comes.
The Sunday Times reports that the towns of Mytholmroyd and Hebden Bridge in Yorkshire have been plagued with immense floods 4 times in the past 15 years. The recent one was the most devastating as it caused $180 million (£150 million) in damages.
The founder of this company is named Sara Tomkins. She established a Christmas tree plantation in the spring of 2020. She started with 400 trees during this time. Dozens from the original batch have now become too big to fit in the average living room. That’s why these were uprooted and replanted in the upper parts of the Calder Valley. The main goal of these trees is to stop floodwaters from running down and affect the two towns at the foot of the hills.
Rooted started as a sustainability project. It later became a successful commercial enterprise that serves a lot of people. When the residents of Yorkshire learned how their Christmas tree buys would be used to protect their towns from floods as well as reduce waste from trees thrown, people asked to rent Tomkins’ original trees.
Tomkins said that people tend to eventually see these trees are part of the family. In fact, they choose one to rent again and again in order to “watch them grow up with their kids.”
“It’s like people adopt them,” she said. “They become part of the family. I’ve got a couple of people already asking if they can have the same tree again in 2023 and I’m trying to gently break it to them that it’s going to be nine foot by then so it won’t fit in their house.”
Tomkins says that the demand for the trees might actually be three times than what she can give, but she as a full-time job as a music venue director. Thus, she can only do this when she’s off work.
“I do this in my spare time so I don’t have the capacity or the physical space to make it any bigger,” she said when she spoke to The Times. “But the demand being there is such a positive thing because, if we can reduce how many Christmas trees we cut down, that is a massive environmental win.”
What are your thoughts? Please comment below and share this news!
True Activist / Report a typo
