It's about that time of year already, when one lucky person in your family gets the onerous task of unravelling the spaghetti mess that is your family's Christmas tree lights. Once done, though, what to hang them on? If you don't already have a crumpled plastic Christmas 'tree' to pull out of the cupboard, what next? Is it better to head to the department store for a plastic fantastic, or grab the axe?
Pablo Päster, over at TriplePundit.com, has some good facts and figures on whether it's environmentally better to go plastic or authentic. Plastic, is looking a better option unless your live tree is coming from a purpose-grown farm. His 'Option C', however, made the most sense to me - buy a live tree in a pot, decorate and water it over Christmas, then at the end of the season take it out to the yard (or the yard/property of a willing recipient), and plant it!
As well as increasing the world's tree population by one member, you'll also have some great quality family time - in the form of an environmentally educational tree planting exercise with the kids.
An even better extension to this idea would be to follow the lead of people in San Francisco, where the council grows trees for city plantings and landscaping - and before they get planted out you 'rent' it for December. It subsidises the city's cost of landscaping, and yet may cost you about the same as if you bought a grown-to-be-cut-down version. This is an idea you might like to suggest to your local council representative. Enterprising forestry managers could also implement this idea into their growing schedule.
