Wafflin’ Around the Christmas Tree
Those of you who celebrate Christmas and also care for the environment might be having a minor holiday crisis over your Christmas tree. Should you choose live or fake? Which is better for the environment?
You thought I was going to give you a simple answer, didn’t you? Well, truth be told, it’s not simple at all. Experts have been arguing about this for years, and they’re not that much closer to a consensus.
Team Live points out that buying a sustainably grown tree and composting it after the holidays is a huge benefit to the environment. While growing on the tree farm, your future Tannenbaum removes carbon from the atmosphere and creates oxygen, just like any other tree. Supporting Christmas tree farms keeps the land used as forest, rather than, well, a site for a factory that makes plastic Christmas trees. And real trees are both recyclable and biodegradable. The key words here, though, are “sustainably grown” and “biodegradable.” If your tree is grown on a monoculture farm and ends up at the dump along with all the gift packaging, the benefit is lost.
Compared to the benefits of sustainably grown live trees, a tree made of plastic in a factory that spews carbon dioxide seems like a very poor idea. But maybe it’s not as bad as it seems. Team Fake reminds us that if you take good care of your plastic tree and use it for a decade or more, then the environmental impact is actually less than that of a live tree. Most people don’t use a fake tree for 10 years, but a good tree can easily last that long or longer. After all, you use it only a few weeks a year and all it does during that time is stand there looking beautiful.
So in the final analysis, supporting a Christmas tree farm is a great idea, but you won’t be risking all our futures if you choose to go with a plastic tree. Whatever choice you make, relax and enjoy your Christmas tree.
I hope you all have a lovely holiday season, whatever holidays you celebrate.
’til next time,
Avery
P.S. Here’s a picture of Arlo in our tree last year. Can you guess if the tree is fake or real? Reply to this email and let me know what you think.
