With Christmas just around the corner your thoughts will doubtless be turning to the festivities, present buying and putting the decorations up. For many, you will also be choosing a good Christmas tree for your living room.

But, you may wonder, which is better for the environment, a real or artificial tree?

Well, for those who buy a real tree, the advantages are that most are grown in farms now, so deforestation isn’t a problem any more. However, often these are many miles away and the trees have to be shipped in to be sold locally. This brings with it fuel and vehicle maintenance costs to the environment. Also the pesticides used to grow the trees are often damaging to the environment.

On the other hand, an artificial tree can mean you avoid the yearly trip to buy a new tree every year. This is not only a cost cutting advantage, but also means transport and pesticide aren’t issues. However, this is only if you keep the tree in good condition and don’t decide to upgrade to a newer, more fancy tree next year. Also, with many artificial trees manufactured in China these days, they can often contain lead or other harmful material. Often they also end up in landfill and can take thousands of years to break down naturally.

So what’s the answer? Well there isn’t one really. But, you can bear the above in mind when making your choice. If you go for a real tree, go for those that have been grown locally and organically and recycle the tree after Christmas is over.

If you go for an artificial tree, again, try and source trees made as locally as possible and veer away from throwing it away. Try recycling it by giving it away to Charity shops, schools or Churches and so on, seeing if they can make use of it. There are also some local versions of www.freecycle.org where you can join a community thriving with ‘green-friendly’ people who give and take unwanted items between each other for free, thus saving landfill, cost and the environment.

Whatever you do this Christmas, do be mindful of the green footprint and when you are giving, give a little to the environment too.

Happy Christmas one and all.