Christmas Trees. Do you fake it?
From the top of our ivory tower we looked at the pros and cons of the real versus fake Christmas tree debate to decide which was the best to buy for Chopsy Towers.
We came up with these:
The pros of fake trees:
They may be an investment and used year after year.
The cons of fake trees:
They will eventually be thrown away using up landfill space. Many people change their kitchens as often as they change their clothes so their Christmas trees are likely to change with the seasons.
The fake trees we looked at in the high street stores this year looked like they would barely make it through this Christmas without pegging it. They are cheaply made, cheaply produced and will not last a lifetime.
Artificial trees are made from Polyvinyl Chloride (PVC). The production of this requires huge amounts of energy and creates and spreads man made toxic chemicals into the air or water. The vast majority of production is in China and research into their production show that workers are not properly protected from the chemicals they work with when making them.
These chemicals are a potential risk for causing cancer and cause damage to children’s development. In some American states, the trees must come with warnings saying not suitable for use around children.
They also have to be imported eventually and usually from China. Carbon footprint anybody?
The pros of real trees:
They can be re-planted and used next year.
They can be recycled by kerbside council collections or local zoo projects.
They are carbon neutral. The will absorb as much carbon dioxide as they give out when burnt or decomposing
The cons of real trees:
Some real trees are still imported.
Some trees are cut from areas of land that should not be touched and sold on the side of the road.
Christmas trees are farmed agricultural products and require cultivation with pesticides during their growth.
Conclusion:
We decided that for the sake of the planet that we would buy a natural Christmas tree that was organically farmed in the UK and had perhaps come via the Forestry Commission.
It took one toddler on the rampage for this idea to be quickly withdrawn.
For some reason never to be revealed and only known by the Chopsy child, he decided to run at a clothes horse covered in wet clothes and to pull it down on top of himself. Obviously this is the kind of fun that entertains toddlers, but put a million sharp prickly needles on it and we realised we would be pulling them out of him for the next 52 weeks. For this child we have NHS Direct on speed dial, and spend one day a week in Accident and Emergency. Last night he was so in awe of tinsel on the wall of a friends house he walked into a door frame and added an extra free range sized egg lump to his head to go with the other two he had already acquired that day.
After going to several shops, and pulling several fake trees on display down on top of us to gauge the pain factor, we went with a budget friendly supermarket fake tree that was in fact, cheap, shoddy and rubbish. We put some of our cheap, shoddy and rubbish decorations on it. Then tree chocolates. Then some more tree chocolates to replace the tree chocolates we ate whilst decorating our cheap shoddy and rubbish tree. Then finally our cheap, shoddy and rubbish fairy lights. When our made in China Christmas tree was put together it didn’t look so bad after all. We just won’t think about the poor sods who had to make all our plastic crap to begin with.
Links
http://www.forestry.gov.uk/forestry/HCOU-54VGW5
Or we like the idea of a locally rented Christmas tree
http://treesforrent.com/index.html