Richard Zurawski

I would guess that this question is one that is dogging many people. What to do this Christmas? Is it better for the environment to by a getting a plastic tree to decorate or go out into the woods and find a real one to cut down and bring home.

Its a complex and interesting question. My suggestion is to do neither, but if you must do one or the other and are trying to make this an environmental yule, here are some of the facts as I see them.

The case for plastic/artificial. The artificial tree is reusable year after year. And it doesn’t involve taking a living thing out of the environment, killing it and then throwing it out after just a couple of weeks. Plastic trees are also less likely to be fire hazards. They don’t burn as easily and some plastic trees are actually fire inhibitors. And because artificial trees don’t burn, when they are disposed of they don’t release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

The case for the real tree. While they live they convert CO2 into carbon, they take carbon dioxide out of the air. They do not involve the plastic industry which is a huge emitter of greenhouse gases and a massive spoiler of the environment. The tree when buried after it is used takes its carbon with it out of the atmosphere. And they are renewable.

The case against artificial: The tree will be around for a very long time. It uses fluorine and chlorine two very danger and deadly elements. It also come from the petrochemical industry and is highly energy intensive, that is, it uses up a lot of energy in its production. Shipping crude hurts the environment and destroys millions of animals yearly through spills and destruction of habitat.

The case against the real tree: You are killing something. You are taking a tree out of the environment which takes CO2 out of the atmosphere. Growing tress is a crop, a monoculture by and large and involves all the negatives of agribusiness like pesticides and deleting natural habitat. Then there is the trucking, preservation and cutting of the tree which involves a significant energy input.

As I said there is no simple answer. Old habits die hard, especially now that we have to consider the environment even when celebrating.

This entry was posted on Friday, December 7th, 2007 at 9:25 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.