Recycle Your Christmas Tree
Today, we start taking some advice from Jodi Helmer's book, "The Green Year." I won't post about the advice from every day here, as you should really buy the book, make your own notes in it (there's places for this) and tweak your own methods of going green.
It's fitting that on January 1, the first piece of advice was to recycle your Christmas tree.
I've always had artificial trees - (except for that one year you insisted we have a "real" tree, Mags!)
Anyway, I didn't do any research this past season into what is more environmentally friendly, cutting a real tree down, or buying an artificial tree. Given my mom only had one artificial tree my entire life, I find it hard to believe it would have been better on the environment to cut one down each year rather than reuse in my family.
Still, if you have a live tree you're taking down now, make sure it finds yet another use. Many cities are offering people the chance to turn their trees in for mulch. Or, in our part of the country, fish and wildlife use old trees to sink in the lakes to create habitat for fish.
posted by Kerri Fivecoat-Campbell @ 5:42 AM
1 Comments
1 Comments:
Potted trees grown without chemicals make a wise choice if you have the space to plant them after the holidays. Another great idea is "rent-a-tree" which some nurseries are doing.
Cut trees from local organic tree farms are good for many reasons and love the idea of putting outside for the birds or to decompose naturally.
An artificial tree that is used for a much longer time than average (most in U.S. are used for only four years before being dumped) or purchased used, then used more, can be a good idea too.
Most artificial trees today come from outside of the U.S. and are made from plastics and other materials that are not particularly good for the people making them much less for our families. If you're into bling and can find them, the old-fashioned aluminum trees are fine.
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