Green Products,  Tips

Real Tree Vs. Fake Tree

December 16, 2010 / 5 Comments

Did you all catch my guest post on Heather’s blog on Friday? I wrote about a Green Christmas, go check it out!

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One of the hot topics this year when talking about a Green Christmas is the Christmas tree. Is a real tree eco-friendly? Are fake trees bad for the environment??

(source)

All in all, I believe getting a real tree for Christmas is the better option for those of you wishing to stay green this holiday season.

Fake trees are not good for the environment. According to the National Christmas Tree Association, “most artificial Christmas trees are made of metals and plastics. The plastic material, typically PVC, can be a potential source of hazardous lead.” Real trees, on the other hand, are an abundant resource grown on tree farms and are completely biodegradable! You can’t recycle plastic trees.

The following chart is also from the National Christmas Tree Association:

Real Trees Artificial Trees
PLACE OF ORIGIN  
  • United States & Canada
  • 85% from China
   
METHOD OF PRODUCTION  
  • farming
  • factory
  • planting takes place Jan-May
  • raw materials sent to factory & assembled into final product
  • estimated 40-45 million trees planted in 2008 in North America
  • product is shipped to U.S. then distributed to stores
  • estimated 446 million trees growing on farms in U.S.
  • number of factories unknown
  • tree farms support complex eco-systems
  • factories only consume natural resources
   
COMPONENTS  
  • plant tissue
  • plastics and metals
  • 100% biodegradable
  • non-biodegradable
   
PVC FREE?  
  • Yes
  • No
   
LEAD FREE?  
  • Yes
  • No (lead is used in the process of making PVC plastic)
   
CARBON NEUTRAL?  
  • Yes
  • No
  • trees absorb carbon dioxide
  • plastic is a petroleum byproduct
  • when decomposing, carbon, nitrogen and other elements are released into soil
  
   
CHEMICALS?  
  • No
  • Yes
  • Scientists have measured cut Christmas trees for chemical residue and not found any significant amounts
  • PVC itself is a dangerous chemical
  • Many different bugs, fungi and parasites can attack and kill trees, so farmers may use pesticides to keep consumers’ trees healthy and alive until harvest
  • Manufacture of PVC creates and disperses dioxins, the most toxic man-made chemical known
  • Most pesticides are ground applied
  • Released into air or water, dioxins enter the food chain, where they accumulate in fatty tissues of animals and humans, a potential risk for causing cancer, damaging immune functions and impairing children’s development
  • Herbicides are used to suppress, not kill off, weeds to prevent soil erosion
  
  • If someone tells you “there are chemicals on cut Christmas trees” they are wrong
  
   
DISPOSAL  
  • Recycled
  • Landfill
  • Used trees can be recycled in a variety of ways
  • Fake trees can’t be recycled and end up in landfills
  • Decomposing trees add nutrients back into the earth
  • All of the accumulated fake trees are a burden to the environment indefinitely
   
RENEWABLE RESOURCE?  
  • Yes
  • No
  • New trees are planted every year
  • Petroleum, used to make plastic, is a non-renewable resource, as are metals
   
ECO-FRIENDLY?  
  • Yes
  • No

While my parents have a fake tree, when it comes time for me to purchase my own tree, I will definitely be buying a real tree from a local tree farm!

(source)

Do you have a real tree or fake tree this holiday season?

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5 Comments

  • Kat

    December 16, 2010 at 11:38 am Reply

    What if you keep the fake tree in storage? My parents love how real trees smell but hated that they were killing a tree each year so about ten years ago they bought a fake tree and have been using it ever since. I have to think that one fake tree over a period of fifteen or twenty years might be better than fifteen or twenty real trees, in terms of resources used to produce the tree. (And ground-applied pesticides often reach the water supply if the area they’re in as a high water table.)

    However, you have to have the storage space to hang onto a fake tree year after year. And I certainly don’t. So I put lights on my windows and some tinsel garland on top of my kitchen cabinets and a fabric wreath on my front door and decided to call it good, without a tree! :o)

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