When it comes to choosing a sustainable Christmas tree, there are many options available that can help reduce your carbon footprint during the holiday season. GreenTeam Group can provide expert guidance on sustainable tree care and management, as well as advice on eco-friendly holiday decorating. Visit their website at https://www.greenteam-group.com/ to learn more.
For additional ideas on how to make your Christmas more sustainable, check out the website of the environmental charity Friends of the Earth at https://www.foe.co.uk/living/articles/10-tips-eco-friendly-christmas. This authority source offers tips on everything from eco-friendly gift wrapping to reducing food waste, as well as advice on how to make your Christmas tree more sustainable.
Real Trees
Buy real trees instead of cutting from the wild during this holiday season to help reduce carbon emissions and boost local economies. Buying from farms helps lower carbon emissions while helping create local jobs as well as contributing to local economies.
The Christmas tree industry employs approximately 15,000 farms nationwide, providing jobs to more than 100,000 individuals. Many of these small-scale operations use sustainable practices when producing and recycling their trees.
Although some farmers use pesticides, most do not. To lessen its environmental impact and purchase trees that have been grown responsibly and in an eco-friendly way, look for trees with FSC certification – this guarantees their development has taken place without harm to humans or the planet.
Additionally, purchasing from a small local business provides vital support to families that rely on it while cutting down on long-distance transportation of trees.
Real Christmas trees also help improve air quality inside of your home by filtering out dust and pollen, helping reduce indoor allergy symptoms. Their leaves help filter this out.
Your home will also remain cooler during the winter months, helping save both energy and money on heating bills. Studies show that households using real trees typically use up to 33% less energy during the holiday season when using less heat for heating their home than without.
Real Christmas trees offer environmental and aesthetic advantages; moreover, many people also find joy in decorating them. A survey conducted by the Christmas Tree Promotion Board showed that most respondents loved getting real trees to decorate every holiday season and making the tradition their own.
Real trees tend to be more costly than artificial ones, but their long lifespan and ability to be reused makes them much more eco-friendly. Their trunk requires water for its health so be sure to have it recut prior to placing in its stand.
When the time comes to take down a tree, many cities offer recycling programs to pick it up and shred and mulch it before returning the product back for use in gardens or compost piles.
Artificial Trees
Artificial Christmas trees might appear more eco-friendly at first glance, but in reality they’re far less sustainable than real ones according to The Carbon Trust. Their environmental footprint can often exceed that of one that ends up in landfill.
Artificial trees’ environmental impact is predominantly determined by the manufacturing process, which accounts for two-thirds of their greenhouse gas emissions and further escalates during transportation according to The Carbon Trust.
Another way to reduce your tree’s carbon footprint is to find a local organic Christmas tree farm. Not only do such farms tend to be more environmentally sustainable, they also support local farmers and families while contributing directly to society.
Support local businesses while minimizing environmental impact by purchasing an organic tree from a local grower. Doing so reduces chemical use during farming operations and significantly decreases your tree’s impact on our planet.
Many people enjoy decorating a live Christmas tree as part of their tradition to bring joy during the holidays and reconnect with friends and family members, so it is no surprise that many opt to decorate with live trees this time around.
However, it’s important to recognize the advantages associated with purchasing an artificial Christmas tree – including easy assembly and dismantle processes, lower costs, and being able to reuse it year after year.
As such, they have become increasingly popular. Available for purchase at many stores and pre-lit to make setup and take down easier, these displays come in all sorts of shapes and sizes to meet every occasion.
As with artificial Christmas trees, artificial Christmas trees typically include plastic-coated ornaments which should be recycled after use. To reduce carbon emissions even further, consider opting for natural-looking plastic-free trees featuring ornaments made from plants, feathers or other biomaterials as decoration.
While many believe artificial trees to be more environmentally-friendly than real ones, real trees actually have much lower environmental impacts when considered in terms of space taken up in homes than an artificial one. Furthermore, living organic Christmas trees help digest carbon produced during their lives to further decrease emissions.
Recycling
Trees can be an effective way to give back to our planet, and there are various methods you can employ when the holiday season has concluded to recycle them back into useful items.
Most communities offer recycling programs for Christmas trees, and many offer drop-off locations at which your tree can be shred or mulched at no charge. This helps reduce landfill waste while creating habitat for local wildlife.
Numerous beach communities affected by hurricanes and tropical storms use old Christmas trees as natural mulch to combat erosion and restore sand dunes. Their needles help retain sand, vegetation and resistance against strong winds while providing habitats for birds such as woodpeckers.
Mulch can be used to fertilize lawns and gardens – an eco-friendly solution that not only benefits the planet but saves money at the same time! It’s an easy, cost-cutting way of helping save the environment while making a positive contribution!
Certain cities also provide curbside collection of naturally grown trees. To participate, place your tree out at the curb before your garbage pick-up date.
If you’re searching for a more sustainable option, why not put up a “living tree” made from driftwood or decorated branches? These trees come in various sizes and can even be taken apart to make storage simpler.
Your Christmas tree can also be recycled by visiting a compost facility. At these facilities, the trees will be ground up into rich soil which can then be used in parks, institutions or community gardens.
Add your tree to a lake or pond as an aquatic ecosystem habitat, where it will provide fish with essential nutrients while helping algae blooms flourish. Trees provide shade to provide even more support to aquatic organisms!
Although using trees in this way may present certain drawbacks, it remains more eco-friendly than disposing of it as regular garbage or burning it in a fireplace.
If you find yourself disposing of your tree this year, take the time to discover recycling options and learn how to best reuse or recycle it – you might be amazed at just how far your small efforts can reach!
Disposal
Christmas trees are beloved decorations in many homes, yet once the holidays are over they often end up in landfills as waste. There are, however, ways of responsibly disposing of your tree that won’t harm the environment.
Start by consulting your local community to see if they offer tree recycling programs. They may offer curbside pickup or drop-off stations, where your tree can then be transformed into mulch or compost and used around homes, gardens, parks and communities as mulch or compost for various projects and uses.
As another option, take your tree to a forest or nature preserve and use it as a resource for wildlife – this will help replenish habitat while providing shelter to birds, bugs, insects, and amphibians alike.
Another option would be donating your tree to a zoo, as they often use them in animal enrichment programs and farm animal diets. Sunken into ponds to create new underwater habitats with fish life can also create opportunities.
Your tree can also be put onto a boat and floated across a lake for wildlife to enjoy. Keep America Fishing suggests doing this but advises obtaining permission from the Fish & Game department first to do this.
If you decide to burn your tree, keep in mind that its combustion can release significant quantities of carbon into the atmosphere through particulate emissions – especially if your tree contains high concentrations of pine needles or has high tar content.
While there are various options for disposing of trees, recycling them instead of sending it off to landfill can be the most eco-friendly approach. Doing this saves transport costs while decreasing carbon emissions due to decomposition.
The City of Paris operates a tree recycling program which collects them from streets, gardens and private properties before shredding and dispersed throughout green spaces throughout Paris to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by up to 80%.