To buy a fake Xmas tree

[TumbleFryer]

Every year for as long as I can remember I’ve bought a real Xmas tree. I live in central London and they seem to get more expensive every year - usually £40-60 for about a 4-5 foot tree.

I generally try to avoid consuming too much plastic for environmental reasons but I’m wondering if, in the long run, a plastic tree is the more environmentally friendly option.

My reasoning is that a real tree takes resources to grow, harvest and transport every year, as well as taking up cultivated land that might be better used growing food. It then has to be disposed of which seems like such a waste after only being used for a few days/weeks. A plastic tree obviously takes resources to produce and transport too but arguably it could be kept for 10 or 20 years (or maybe even longer).

What do you think? Am I being unreasonable to switch to plastic?

Soil Association says if you re-use an artificial 10 times, it's more eco friendly than real.

www.soilassociation.org/take-action/organic-living/christmas/eco-friendly-christmas-trees-real-vs-fake

Although it does point out that they are hard to recycle. We bought a Balsam Hill one a couple of years ago and it will last at least double that. The one we had previous was a cheapie B&Q one, bought when DS was a baby and he's almost 20.

They argument about pine trees being good for the environment when they are growing is only fair to a point, I don’t think many birds nest in them and there is rarely much growing under them as in time they make the soil relatively acidic. I’m sure the carbon capture and absorbing water/reducing flooding arguments are fair.

I find the real vs fake tree argument a bit tiresome and do think it often mostly boils down to a sense of snobbery. I grew up with real trees and currently have an artificial tree which is lovely and particularly from a distance looks real anyway.

Unless I were able to use a local replanting scheme or were to purchase one that can be replanted and do that myself (not an option for me anyway) then I do think the waste of a tree that's been growing for years, for the sake of a few weeks in the lounge, is pretty grim.

Artificial trees now are much better than days of old. I switched to a Kaeminkg Everlands Grandis Fir a couple of years ago from an older style one I'd had years, it cost about £150, looks fab and has a 12 year warranty. I rang around charity shops locally to get rid of the old one until I found one that would take it/use as display. Bit of effort but worthwhile and better than dumping it at the tip.

I purchased a fake tree from Argos about 17 years ago.
Last Christmas I ended up holding it together with gaffa tape!
I get a new fake tree in the January sales. So fingers crossed it lasts just as long.
I've still got some of the decorations from when the children were small, son is now 26

My fake tree is 22 years old and looks just the same as the day I bought it!

I’m on my second fake tree of my adult life.

first one was a cheap one, I think it cost £10 from Woolworths or something, had that one for 11 years.

now in tree number 2, which was a bit more expensive, I think it was half price and cost about £40. That one is currently on year 7 and going strong, still looks pretty much brand new. I don’t imagine we’ll replace it for at least another 10 years.

My fake tree has easily been used >10 times and it still looks as new.

Goes back in its original box each year, taped up in binbags - some years we even reuse the binbags - to stop it being invaded by insects, and goes in the loft.

Go to a garden centre with a good Christmas display so you have a choice of tree and can see what quality you are getting.

I bought my latest fake tree from a charity shop. Cost me 3 quis complete with all the lights and baubles.

Land used for Christmas trees generally isn't suited for food crop production, so I wouldn't worry about that.

Last year my dd got a real ‘rented’ tree from somewhere local - the idea was that you could have the same one again the following year. Obviously it had to be kept very well watered and was in fact sprouting new leaves by the time they took it ‘home’.

It was a fairly big one anyway, so I doubt she’ll be able to have it for more than a couple of years - it’d be through the ceiling. Such trees do grow quickly, which is why they’re good at using up CO2.

We always have a real tree. Haven’t had a fake one since early years of living in the Middle East meant that the only tree available was the fakest little fake imaginable - branches were just ‘sticks’ with green and white tinselly ‘leaves’. Came in a box with a few decs and a little string of lights. I loved that tree though - having fully expected to have no tree at all. I still regret unearthing it from the loft and chucking it, some years back. 🙁

We bought a good quality fake tree about 20 years ago (in the sale). It's still looking good - even though it's probably a bit big now the youngest is 26 and there's no Grandchildren. I think it's more than offset the carbon footprint versus going out in the car and buying a real tree every year.

YANBU

We have had real trees for years and years but eventually I got sick of the big cost buying them each year, hoovering up pine needles, hassle of disposing of the tree every January.
Last year we bought a big fake tree for the first time and it looked great. Look forward to the ease of putting it up and down again this year - plus no additional cost! Plan to keep it for at least 10 years.

This is a good point - we have lots of trees and decorations in the charity shop where I volunteer. Always worth having a look to see what there is. We currently have pick and mix 10 baubles for £2, last year I got some lovely 1960s vintage baubles

I bought a secondhand fake christmas tree from a hospice shop over 15 years ago. You build it and add the branches as you go, we leave out some of the back ones so it fits snugly into our bay window. It is very convincing and looks real.
We also use decorations we have made and bought through the years.

We bought our tree from van Hague's in the January sales . It's 12 years old and still wows me each year .

I’ve always insisted on a real tree, but I’m considering a fake this year. Getting the real one with the kids is lovely, but living with it is less lovely!

We reluctantly paid £70 for a fake natural looking tree 25 years ago (long story and we felt guilty about spending so much at the time), but it looked really good. It still looks good, and I reckon we will get a fair few more years out of it yet, so in the long term, if you're not going to get a living tree, it must be better to buy a fake tree you really like and keep it.

I couldn't bring myself to buy a plastic one. A real one contributes to the environment in myriad ways whilst growing, ours are locally sourced and we chip it afterwards and use it to line our veg beds eventually.

Compared to a piece of plastic, often shipped from hundreds of miles away and never going to decompose, I just can't do it.

I'm allergic to real trees, so have an artificial one. I've had it over 10 years now 🙂

We bought our in 2006 for €12, it's 5ft. Not convincingly real, but so covered in baubles and lights that you can't really tell.

We always mooch round the Christmas market and have a look at the real trees - but they're so expensive! €60 for a half decent but very small tree - that a big part of our Christmas budget, more than what DH and I spend on each other!

Plus ,we live in a flat, no garden to replant it, no companies around who offer the re-planting/loan tree idea posted above.

I grew up with a plastic tree, DH with real. 70% of the decorations are handmade, so I feel we've offset the plasticness.

You can get potted trees that are replanted when you're finished with them. I tried it once and tbh was not successful at keeping said tree alive - so for me it was a resounding fail but if you're fairly decent at not killing plants then might be a good option. We have an artificial tree bought second hand to improve the sustainability factor and we've had it about 7 years now- still going strong.

Plastic all the way. Ours is a stunning 7ft tree. It’s beautiful. We have lived here for 21 Christmases and only bought our 2nd tree 3 years ago. My mums teee she got when I was 17 and it’s still going strong 29years later.

I just don’t see the point of cutting down beautiful trees from their natural surroundings and stuffing them in a pot for 3 weeks until they then die and are thrown in landfills. What a waste.

I can always remember my mum got a real tree one year and the needles kept falling off. She constantly had the hoover out.

Used to always buy a real tree.

We then had an infestation of false widow spiders..... went to artificial after that!

We bought a fake tree from Balsam Hill- expensive but with the thought that we shouldn't need a new tree for at least 10 years + and all the baubles we use are over 20yrs old (mothers and grandmothers) so I feel we're doing the little bit we can.

All of these people saying the fake tree will last decades are missing the point - they’ll all still have to be binned eventually. The best option is a living tree in a pot - some forestry companies rent them out at Christmas and collect them again afterwards.