SAGE » Q&AQ: What’s better for our environment: buying a real tree each year or using a “fake” tree?
Asked by Michael Thurman, ’79, South Pasadena, Calif.
Wrapping paper and tinsel, a flurry of last-minute shopping and a skyrocketing electricity bill to support massive Christmas light displays . . . it could be argued that “the nightmare before Christmas” has something to do with the way we’ve decked the season with intense consumption.
No matter what holiday you celebrate, we could all learn a little from Hanukkah—it’s a celebration of the conservation of resources, right? But there’s no need to be a Grinch about Christmas—let’s take the opposite approach and “let the Christmas spirit ring.”
Where can you get that pine fresh smell?
Around Stanford, Christmas tree farms specialize in growing Monterey Pines. The USDA reports the Monterey pine is paradoxically the most farmed pine in the world, yet threatened within its native range between California and Baja California. To help the Monterey pine species survive, they suggest you request trees established from native California rather than brought to life in New Zealand and shipped over as a seedlinghidden under the Monterey Pine wrapping.
In the United States as a whole, 343,374 acres (an area one-third the size of Rhode Island) was devoted to the production of Christmas trees in 2007 according to the USDA’s US Agriculture census. The National Christmas Tree Association (NCTA) estimates that just an acre can provide the daily oxygen requirements for eighteen people. Sure the tree farm trade group might be a little biased, but let’s look at what they do with an acre.
The number of trees on this acre is limited by competition between plants for light and nutrients. The bigger the trees, the fewer can grow in a specific area. Customers normally want a six to eight foot tree (dictated by their reach and ceiling heights), which translates to about 5.5 feet of spacing for grown trees.
Access to sunlight is a big issue. This is why herbicides are applied to fields for the first three years of the young saplings’ growth. These chemicals target fast-growing weeds that also compete for sunlight. Profit margins are slim, so the fertilizer and pesticide intensity has to remain modest. Tree farms in the United States are often located on marginal land, with steep slopes or poor soil that is of limited use for traditional agricultural. The basic steps in taking a potential Christmas tree from seed to sawdust are outlined in Figure 1.
Now it’s true, the addition of fertilizers and pesticides into surrounding watersheds—resulting in algae blooms and other secondary impacts—haven’t been well studied, likely underestimating the negative environmental impact of farmed trees. But that doesn’t take much pressure off of artificial trees, which go through a process something like the one outlined in Figure 2.
According to the Ellipsos report, the average tree requires nearly 3 kilograms PVC, fashioned into 387,360 needles to adorn 4.74 kg of steel shaped into 64 branches.
The raw materials for PVC production include natural gas, electricity and salts. Secondary concerns about PVC center around potentially dangerous additives, which include colorants, fibrous reinforcements including asbestos, flame-retardants, plasticizers such as phthalic acid esters and stabilizers including organotin compounds. Steel uses iron ore, oxygen and lots and lots of coal energy. In these industries, there is a huge potential for air pollution and harmful emissions, especially since the majority of artificial trees are manufactured in China, which has had a reputation for prioritizing industrialization at the cost of the environment. The 2007 US Census Bureau valued the Chinese shipment of artificial trees, including Christmas and other metal and plastic trees, to the United States at $80.2 million annually.
Ho, ho, ho-ld onto that tree
In the essential answer, I stated that if one extends the lifetime of the artificial tree to manufacturers’ suggested 20 years or more, the fake tree becomes a more environmentally friendly choice. But is this reasonable? Lacking statistics, I decided to conduct my own survey among friends and family. While this technique is admittedly neither representative nor random, folks I quizzed kept their artificial trees anywhere from two to 12 years. Most didn’t see any need to replace them (“That’s why I bought an artificial tree,” one respondent patiently explained to me.) although the six years estimated by the report seemed to be about average for the group thus far, and a fairly good benchmark. The most common reason cited for buying an artificial tree was allergies to a real one.
Maybe it’s important to keep something else in mind, too. Regardless of the type of tree chosen, the environmental impacts are fairly small when compared to other holiday activities, such as decorative lighting or car use. According to Department of Transportation statistics from 2001-2002, the Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Year holiday periods are among the busiest long-distance travel periods of the year. During the six day Thanksgiving travel period, the number of long-distance trips (to and from a destination 50 miles or more away) increases by 54 percent, and during the Christmas/New Year period the number rises by 23 percent, compared to the average number for the remainder of the year.
To put things into perspective, remember the emissions I cited earlier from the Canadian study? If you assume an average car (150 g/km), the 3.1 kg CO2 per year for the natural tree corresponds to a trip of roughly 78 miles, whereas the emitted CO2 for the artificial tree over its entire lifespan (48.3 kg) corresponds to about 200 miles of driving. Walking, biking or carpooling can easily offset this difference. Keep that in mind as you start to think about those New Year’s resolutions!
Deck the (White House) Halls
In 1901, Theodore Roosevelt refused to allow a Christmas tree in the White House, reportedly saying, “It’s not good to cut down trees for mere decoration. We must set a good example for the people of America.” At that time, according to the NCTA, deforestation from families cutting their own trees was noticeable problem within the National Parks. These days, cutting a wild tree is the exception rather than the rule, and requires a permit from the Forest Service.
And what of the White House Christmas tree? Selection has fallen to the NCTA’s Annual Convention & Trade Show. This year, Eric and Gloria Sundback of Shepherdstown, W. Va., have the prestigious honor of submitting their prize-winning Fraser fir to First Lady Michelle Obama for the 2009 Christmas season. It will be displayed in the Blue Room, where presidents traditionally receive formal guests during the holiday season.
