It’s time to get out the spades. On 6 March, a team of five eager volunteers from Kenny Waste Management will be helping the Woodland Trust plant trees in the Trust’s Smithills Estate near Bolton.
The Woodland Trust is holding a Tree Planting Fortnight from 4-15 March. Last year, they planted an incredible 21,000 in the Smithills Estate – and this year they have 28,650 saplings lined up.
We’re already working with Chris Waterfield and the Woodland Trust team at Smithills. We supply the Estate with free skips, and we also pass on some of our green waste to Smithills’ onsite sculptor to repurpose as works of art. At almost 1,170 acres, Smithills is the Woodland Trust’s largest site, with plenty of scope for planting trees.
The tree planting fortnight seemed like a great opportunity to get more involved with the Woodland Trust (while getting some welcome fresh air and exercise!).
At Kenny Waste Management, we’re committed to protecting the environment – it’s what we do! However, there’s no getting around the fact that, currently, our fleet does produce CO2 emissions. We want to offset this by planting trees.
Trees absorb CO2 and breathe out oxygen, and we’ve all heard them described as “the lungs of the planet”. Figures vary due to species and tree age; however roughly, a tree can absorb up to 22kg of carbon every year.
A group of six mature trees will sequester around 1 tonne of carbon; so, businesses like ours need to estimate their annual tonnage emissions, then do a simple calculation to work out how many trees must be planted to offset this.
We’ll be helping the Woodland Trust plant a variety of native trees, including oak, rowan, willow, birch, alder and holly.
Watch The Woodland Trust Video
Other local organisations including Phoenix Futures and Myerscough College will be joining in. There’s also a public tree planting day at Smithills on Saturday 9 March from 10am until 3pm, which will be a great day out for local families. If you’re interested, come to Walker Fold Car Park (BL1 7PT) on the day.
If you’d like to find out more about how tree planting can offset your company or household’s emissions, the Woodland Trust can give you advice.
To find out more about Kenny Waste Management’s work with local community projects like this one, please contact us at drivingchange@kennywastemanagement.co.uk to learn more about our Driving Change programme.
We’ll let you know how our planting goes!
