Getting ready to put up your tree?  Which is the greener choice — real or plastic?

Lots of people go with fake trees thinking that it’s better for the environment than cutting down a real tree every year, but fake trees are more of an environmental hazard than real ones.

Fake Christmas trees are made with PVC, which is environmentally detrimental at every stage in it’s life cycle: from production, to off-gassing in your living room, to being a hazard when it’s disposed of.  And, many fake Christmas trees contain unsafe levels of lead.

Real Christmas trees are grown for the purpose of being cut down (please get your tree from a farm and not from the woods).  While growing, your future Christmas tree is working to offset CO2 emissions.   And, apparently younger trees have a greater CO2 offset benefit, so the process of farming Christmas trees can actually be beneficial to the environment.

The main environmental issues with real trees are pesticides and the energy used to transport trees.

The solution?  Buy local, and talk to your local tree farmer about the farming process.  Not all Christmas tree farms use pesticides, and even if they do, hearing concerns from their customers might make them think twice about using them in the future.  Check Local Harvest for a Christmas tree farm near you.

When Christmas is over, make sure to put your tree out for your town’s mulching program, or allow it to decompose naturally.  Don’t bag it and put it out as trash.

Better yet, buy a live tree, with the root ball still in tact, and plant it after the holidays.  Our very first Christmas tree is growing in our backyard.  It’s such a nice way to preserve good holiday memories.