Today, Murad urged Londoners to recycle their Christmas Trees and other rubbish leftovers from the festive season. He launched the Recycle for London campaign by feeding the 22m Christmas Tree at Trafalgar Square to a chipping machine.

 An estimated 976,000 Christmas trees and 124m cards will be thrown away in London instead of being recycled. To make recycling easy 26 boroughs are offering to collect the trees and other festive rubbish from home, while the remaining 17 councils have set up drop-off points for Christmas trees.

Murad said: “While London’s recycling rate is improving, we could all be doing much more to help increase it even further.

“I hope today’s recycling of the Trafalgar Square Christmas tree will encourage Londoners to make a greener start to 2008. The post-festive season is a great time to begin new habits.”

London residents and businesses can find out more about recycling services in their area by visiting the Recycle for London website, call 0845 331 3131 or text RECYCLE and a full postcode to 63131.