What’s the most eco-friendly Christmas tree?
Is it a real tree? Is it a fake tree?
The answer might surprise you!
As soon as the Christmas period knocks on the door, all of us start preparing Christmas trees. The process of decorating them brings us delight and invokes the festive feeling in us. However, this is merely one side of the picture, as there are environmental costs that we need to take into account.
Artificial Christmas Trees
Artificial Christmas trees are made from metal and plastic, which means that a lot of resources and energy are required to produce them, which releases CO2 and contributes to air pollution. Since the material of their produce is plastic, it’s also almost impossible to recycle artificial trees. Therefore, if you choose to buy an artificial Christmas tree, you should keep it for as long as possible.
Many artificial trees are also made with polyvinyl chloride (PVC), which is a known carcinogen, one of the most environmentally damaging types of petroleum-derived plastic.
To top it off, lead is often used as a stabilizer in PVC, which means fake Christmas trees may be shedding lead dust on Christmas presents, which is certainly not what we would want young children to be exposed to.
Natural Christmas Trees
Some people prefer purchasing an artificial Christmas tree, as they are against chopping down trees. So, it might be surprising that real trees can be, in fact, more environmentally friendly.
Most of us have read in biology or botany textbooks or have heard that real trees absorb CO2 and release oxygen. In contrast, fake Christmas trees burn fossil fuels and release CO2 when they are being produced.
This by itself doesn’t mean that we should use natural trees and discard fake ones completely. Instead, we should distinguish the two types of real trees: trees that have roots and those that do not. According to the research of Carbon Trust, an organization that strives to decarbonize the world, a natural Christmas tree that does not have roots and is disposed of into a landfill after Christmas has a carbon footprint of around 16kg of carbon dioxide, whereas a real Christmas tree that has roots and can be replanted has a carbon footprint of around 3.5kg. Therefore, it is better and more eco-friendly to use natural Christmas trees with roots.
Choose well! Make it Last!
Merry Christmas and happy New Year!
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