Green Christmas Trees Redux
Tonic, the "
good news" site
Friday, December 11, 2009 1:52 PM ET
|
My hope on any given day is to offer up a little something (or two such somethings) that I can stand behind over the long haul. At the same time, my personal mission is to retain an open mind, and to step up and say when I've learned something, and when I've been wrong. Last year, in discussing artificial trees, I was wrong.
We certainly don't mean to chastise any among you who have an artificial tree, understanding that the real ones may not grow readily near where you live. And if you keep it in good condition, it's something that you can reuse for many holiday seasons.
|
|
 |
|
That said, a fascinating and yet very simply laid out analysis published at LiveScience on the matter of real versus artificial trees from an ecological perspective is too good not to share.
Many of us are concerned with the health of the world's forests and blanch at the thought of hacking down a living tree for a short-lived decorative and celebratory flourish, but LiveScience draws a critical distinction: The large majority of trees in the holiday marketplace are grown in plantations with the express purpose of being cut down. Think of them as temporary and small-scale carbon banks. After being cut, they are replaced with fresh new plantings. If you are able to ensure that your tree, when the season ends, finds its way into a municipal chipping and mulching operation, you'll make the cut in seeing to it that your tree is a carbon-neutral proposition.
Artificial trees, however, regardless of how many repeated uses you're able to get out of it, can never be carbon neutral owing to the petroleum that goes into their manufacturing.
LiveScience goes on to remind us that artificial trees are invariably made overseas, and the dollars laid out to buy them head that way, too. Alternately, purchasing a farmed tree is invariably a domestically grown product. And if you're extra lucky to live in a part of the country where evergreen trees grow propitiously, your purchasing dollars stay right in or near your community.
And if you happened to miss it, you should check out Darragh Worland's offering from a couple days ago on what the folks at the Living Christmas Tree Company are doing to help you keep your ecological footprint in the snow super small this holiday season.
Photo courtesy of liljulier, via Flickr