Eco Friendly Christmas Trees: Live Christmas Trees Versus Artificial Christmas Trees

This years promises to be one of the most eco friendly focused Christmas years for many Americans. One of the easiest ways many American can start their eco friendly Christmas is to choose between a real live Christmas tree or an artificial Christmas tree.

This leads to the question which is more eco friend the real Christmas tree or the artificial Christmas tree.

The answer is the live Christmas tree is more eco friendly than the artificial Christmas tree and here is why.

Starting with where live Christmas trees and artificial Christmas trees are produced. Live Christmas trees are grown right here in the United States. Artificial Christmas trees are most commonly manufactured in China. The amount of polution emitted into the environment to simply ship the artificial Christmas tree from China far outweighs the cost of transporting live Christmas tree on the environment.

Most Christmas tree farms sell their tree locally to surround towns and cities.

If the product and emitting of pollutants to move the Christmas tree is not enough to convince your that live Christmas tree are more eco friendly than artificial tress, then think about the actual process of making both of these trees.

Artificial trees are made from PVC, plastic, and other non biodegradable materials. Live Christmas trees are made from all natural materials: seeds. A live Christmas tree growing only helps it the environment.

On average 40 million Christmas trees are planted annually.

The manufacturing and production of an artificial Christmas trees emits pollutants that are harmful and not eco friendly. Artificial Christmas tree factories emit dioxins, a by product of PVC. Dioxin is the most toxic man made chemical on earth.

Finally, you may still not be convinced that live Christmas trees are more eco friendly than artificial trees. So consider what happens to live Christmas trees versus artificial Christmas trees when that are disposed of.

Live Christmas trees can be recycled into mulch and reintroduced into the earth as a nutrient. Artificial Christmas trees are not biodegradable and simply remain in land fills for undetermined amounts of time.

While you may not throw out your artificial Christmas tree every year, chances are you may update it about once a decade. In your adult life that means you may throw away as few as 6 to 8 artificial Christmas trees, which simple remain in land fills never biodegrading. In this same time with a live Christmas tree you will have recycled and reintroduced nutrients into the earth's soil on average 60 to 80 times. You do the math!