Holiday choices

With Thanksgiving passed, we’ve entered the period for buying Christmas trees. Already an outdoor stand near us has stacks of trees ready to sell, and I’m seeing station wagons cruising by with trees strapped to their roofs.

Ready to go

    In my present state of constant background worry about climate change, my reflex is to think that cutting down trees is a bad thing. But what’s the total environmental impact of Christmas trees? Predictably, tree farmers say that real trees are more environmentally friendly, while makers of artificial trees argue that man-made trees can be just as sustainable.

    Proponents of natural trees point out that used Christmas trees can be recycled to make mulch. Like many cities, ours picks up trees at curbside after the holiday for this purpose. Tree farms provide wildlife habitat, if pesticide spraying doesn’t poison animals trying to move in. Whole trees can be laid down to prevent erosion, and if all else fails, used trees can be fed to goats!

 

Christmas trees stabilize a Connecticut beach

    The trees themselves are carbon neutral over their lifetime. When harvested, they give up the same amount of carbon that they took in. There’s carbon cost for powering machines used in farming—did you know that Christmas trees have to be sheared annually to create dense, uniform foliage? 

Christmas tree farm

Shipping harvested trees to the point of sale also uses fossil fuel, so it’s good to buy local. In all, production of a live tree that makes its way to your home generates an estimated 6.8 pounds of greenhouse gases per year of the tree’s life.

    By comparison, cars and trucks account for an average of 24 pounds of greenhouse gases per gallon of gasoline.

Christmas trees are paltry polluters compared to cars

    A 2008 study from a group of sustainable development consultants in Quebec found that artificial trees have lower environmental impact only if they’re used for at least 20 years. 

Buying an artificial tree could be the start of a long-term relationship

An alarming wrinkle: many of the artificial trees currently in use are made of recycled plastic, usually polyvinyl chloride, that has been stabilized with metal. What metal did Chinese makers add? You guessed it: lead. The plastic degrades as it ages, and at nine years, it starts to give off lead. Use of lead in plastic Christmas trees has recently been outlawed in China.

    I’m not in the market for a Christmas tree, but if I were, I’d be tempted to buy a living tree in a pot and grow it in my yard once it had played its part in the holiday celebration. 

A petite balsam fir (Abies balsamea)

Clemson Cooperative Extension in South Carolina describes the pitfalls of this approach. Trees that spend more than 10 days in the hot, dry indoor environment aren’t likely to survive being planted outdoors. Planting sooner is better, but that’s assuming that the ground isn’t frozen after Christmas. As an alternative, Clemson suggests planting a tree in your yard and decorating it there.

    As always with personal environmental decisions, assigning weights to these factors is complicated. My conclusion: enjoy your Christmas tree, park the car, and try to walk more.