IT is nearly that time of the year again where the Christmas decorations come down and the tinsel gets packed away.

And thousands of people across Hampshire will be looking to throw away their Christmas trees.

Councils across the county have different ways of dealing with a huge number of trees following the festive period.

In Southampton, residents are being urged to leave them out with their regular waste between January 13 and 24.

But across the New Forest a different service is in place.

Drop-off points have been earmarked for use in January, including Brookley Road car park in Brockenhurst, the A338 slip road car park at Fordingbridge, New Road car park in Hythe, St Thomas Street car par in Lymington and the village car park in Lyndhurst. Further drop-off points will be available at Crossmead Avenue car park in New Milton, The Furlong car park in Ringwood and Westfield car park in Totton.

In the Test Valley, there are a number of different options for green-thinking residents. They can either take their trees to local household waste recycling centres or to a number of temporary disposal sites. Otherwise they can be put out for collection by the garden waste collection team which is a chargeable service. All trees will be composted.

In Fareham, residents are being told to simply leave their old trees out for recycling by their garden waste sack when the service resumes after Christmas time.

Eastleigh Borough Council wants residents to recycle as much as possible by taking their trees to one of 11 sites between January 6 and 20.

There are drop-off points at Lakeside Country Park in Eastleigh, Haskins Garden Centre in West End, Brambridge Garden Centre, Mortimer Road car park in Botley and Arturi’s Garden Centre and Fair Oak Garden Centre in Fair Oak.

The Hedge End town centre car park, as well as all of the authority’s household waste and recycling centres, will be taking trees.

Eastleigh Council’s lead for environment and sustainability, Councillor Louise Bloom, said: “This is a very popular scheme with local residents. Last year hundreds of trees were recycled in an environmentally-friendly way. This year the collected trees will be recycled and treated along with other green waste to produce peat-free soil conditioner. So I encourage everyone to recycle their Christmas trees for free at one of the 11 sites throughout our borough.”

If you’re a member of the council’s garden waste collection service you can also place any tree up to 4ft tall alongside your collection bag for recycling.