Celebrating the holiday season with a Real Christmas Tree is a long-standing tradition. Better environmentally and completely recyclable, and choosing your own fresh cut Christmas tree makes a wonderful holiday memory.
Many people have the misconception that Christmas Trees are cut down from the forest. Real Christmas Trees are grown as crops on a farm. Once they are harvested, new seedlings are planted to replace harvested trees. These would NOT have been planted if trees hadn’t been harvested the previous year. Fake Christmas Trees however are a non-renewable, non-biodegradable, plastic and metal product most often made in overseas factories. Not to mention that the factories that manufacture these artificial trees use fossil fuels, create non-degradable waste, and produce pollution as cargo in shipping lanes in the earth’s oceans.
85% of all artificial or fake Christmas trees are manufactured in China. The dust that accumulates on an artificial Christmas tree year after year is highly flammable. Pre-lit artificial trees are especially susceptible to this. Each time an artificial tree is put together and then taken apart, the wiring for the lights begins to break down. a non-renewable resource, known as polyvinyl chloride (PVC).
In order for the PVC to become pliable, other metals and chemicals are added to the manufacturing process. In countries that don’t have the regulations that the United States does, these additional materials can be dangerous.