How Green Can A Christmas Tree Be?

Locally grown, pesticide-free food is gaining sway these days because it is fresh, healthy and supports area farmers. But how many of us give the same kind of thought to the Christmas trees we bring home? Can you decorate your Fraser fir without getting pesticide residue in your lungs and on your skin?

Sure, if the tree is certified organic by the Department of Agriculture. Or if it is a Certified Naturally Grown tree, which meets the same basic requirements: it was raised without synthetic pesticides or fertilizers, using sustainable methods like composting and erosion control.

Or if you buy your tree from a local grower, like Mike Ludgate, who manages Ludgate Farms, a natural foods and farm store on the outskirts of Ithaca, N.Y., you can simply ask how the trees were raised.
Read the full story here.

Related:
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Green Gift Guide: Low-Impact, Eco-Friendly Ideas For the Holidays

Comments

[research]

A simple trick I've used, is to buy a modest sized potted tree, keep it inside till it's too large, then planted in the yard, or recycle it. and get a new one every 5 years or so.

Living trees don't make the mess of dead trees and stay green.

[motley2]

I guess I've spent too much time thinning Lodgepole Pine. The sight of all those dead Doug Firs and spruce stacked up in the tree lots makes me think of chainsaws and the smell of terpenes in the morning. Beautiful, beautiful...slash.

[kellygrrrl]

any potted tree looks beautiful with little lights and ornaments on it.
there is no need to kill all these trees each year.

Sometimes I do a palm -- I even done a citrus. It's fun and looks much more natural here in So Cal where often the holiday season is in the 80s

[goodgravy]

the trees are grown on farms and meant for harvesting, just like any other crop. it's not like they're denuding the forests so that folks can have a christmas tree in their house.

[mouselion]

Most crop production is not done sustainably -- so, just because something is meant to be harvested doesn't it's something you should support.
However, I think the gist of her comment has to do with aesthetics and regional appropriateness for Christmas decoration.
Still, it's a silly, wasteful practice: grow a tree for seven years, use pesticides and chemical fertilizers, cut it down and then throw it away after a couple of weeks.
Sort of epitomizes the commercialized, consumeristic "meaning" of Christmas.

[KillTheMessenger]

How many gallons of gasoline or diesel does it take to bring home the tree? How many lbs. of CO2 were generated to melt the glass of the ornaments?

[jackpinesavage]

Well, if you live in my town and buy a tree from me, i use about 6 gallons of gas for the round trip to the tree farm and bring between 250 and 300 trees back with that (or 0.024 gl/tree at 250/load). I haven't even used 2.5 gallons of 2-cycle gasoline for the chainsaw for all the trees and cutting all the brush for wreaths. No fertilizers, no pesticides, no herbicides.

Buy your tree from a local grower...problem solved.

[Tinkeraw]

The problem for some of us is that traditional Christmas trees don't grow in our climate. We need to accept Christmas trees of different species just as we need to accept people of different color and ethnicity.

[gevan]

I haven't brought home a killed tree since the eighties.