To hate seeing half-dead Christmas trees dumped outside

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Inspired by another thread about xmas lights, one of the most depressing sights of the year IMO is when people leave their real xmas trees dumped in front of their houses in early January.

I get that they are (mostly) awaiting a booked collection from a charity etc, so I'm not suggesting that those people are doing anything wrong or should do anything different, but it always looks a bit sad, especially before 5 Jan. AIBU?

I saw some Christmas trees in the garden centre a few days ago. I told my husband that I felt sorry for them because they had missed their opportunity to be decorated. They made me feel sad for them because.

@SpecduckularlyQuackers - I used some sticks from early spring prunings as plant supports last summer. I forgot to put a few of them in upside down.

The damned things rooted immediately and overtook what they were supposed to be supporting! Anyone need 4 lavatera and 3 cornus shrubs….

I’m a living cautionary tale. At least a Christmas tree is unlikely to burst enthusiastically back into life!

Real trees aren't being environmentally friendly as every year a tree is grown just to be discarded with weeks if not days, we have a good artificial tree that's been going strong for a decade, realistic looking and full, no need to keep buying.

Yes, it does look sad, especially when January is typically so dreary anyway, but the trees are used as mulch, and real trees (grown as a crop much like any other) do use up a lot of CO2 while growing.

We have a small potted one outside the front door - on its 2nd year and I hope it will manage a 3rd, but the indoor tree is always real - I’d never want a fake one.
At least it will have had its moment of glory!

All right if you happen to like fake trees. Some of us really don’t. In any case, as per my pp, real trees do use up a lot of CO2 as they grow.

@Turophilic I'd snap up the cornus if I was your neighbour 😆 the lower part of my garden is just above a small stream and it's squelchy at the best of times I usually call it the swamp

I'm afraid this is why I have an artificial tree... There seems like there's a lot more thought-process involved in having a real one. From collection, installing, maintaining and disposing of.
Mine comes out of a box, slot the branches in, fluff it out and decorate. Then do the same in reverse a month later. Mine was £60 about 10 years ago.

I find it a big hypocritical waste.
How many tres are killed for a purpose that most of the UK don’t believe in?
Why are we recycling every scrap of paper when we are throwing away giant trees after a few weeks of use?

I'm just grateful that I've moved to an area that has a council collection! The last town we lived in (not UK) had a system where local charities collected them and you paid for it by buying a special stamped ribbon that you tied around the tree... but you could only get it at the local tourist office which is open for like 2 mornings a week, less between Christmas and new year. I'll never understand why they didn't let the local tree sellers sell them alongside the actual trees. Anyway we lived right in front of the forest and what would end up happening is that people who kissed the red ribbon thing would come up in the evening and just dump it about 5m into the forest... there was a big pile of them some years.

It's better for the environment to get a real tree than an artificial one, I researched it a few years back.

It takes a lot longer than a year to grow a tree 😂 As a PP said they are decarbonising for the years they're around, plus the demand = more trees planted.

Artificial trees are much worse for the environment because of all the plastic, even if you keep them years. The production alone is terrible, plus they're all made in China and shipped for extra damage.

This trees are grown specifically as a crop. You might as well talk about the number of wheat or vegetables killed.

Read some News maybe? Take your mind off the trees?

I think in this situation I'd have a second set of decorations in non Christmassy colours and do a birthday tree. I've seen people do fun things with balloons on new year's trees and the like.

I feel like this, OP. So poignant.

I’d love to give ours to goats. Never heard of that before.

Ours are (dumped) on the patio but look quite nice now they’ve got snow on them.

There are tree recycling points here so fortunately very few dumped on pavement. If someone has the means to bring a tree home, they have the means to take it to a recycling point.

Ours is still up but I'll remove all the lights and decorations this afternoon in honour of twelfth night and we'll drag it out on the patio. In the next few days husband will chop off all the branches and put them in the green waste bin to be collected/recycled and chop up the trunk which we'll store in the shed and use as BBQ fuel in the summer.

I love having a real tree - my parents disapproved so we had a small fake tree at home. As other posters have said, they are like any other crop and recycling the wood and needles is more environmentally friendly than manufacturing plastic crap and importing it from China.

They ate not 'half-dead'. They died when they were severed from their root stock last year.

Thanks, Devilspawn, that's good to know. In regards to the actual individual tree, though, I still feel a sense of guilt, irrational though that may be.

I wish they'd drop them round onto our drive. We'd happily shred the branches for garden mulch, and saw up the trunks for the wood pile.

@DogInATent put a sign up telling people they can do that.

A pretty sight where I live is seeing a local charity collecting all of the trees to spread in the sand dunes.

@Needmorelego great idea!

I am struck every year at just how weird it is that we bring an actual tree into our house to slowly die for a couple of weeks. I bought a potted, Christmas tree shaped bushy thing this year and will see if I can hang onto it for next year. It's not ideal for hanging decs on but we managed, and it's a nicer shape than a proper baby fir tree.

Seeing the plastic ones being thrown away is worse. I used to work with a lady who bought a new artificial tree every year. She liked to change the colour and style, and said they never went back in the box.

Even more sad - going to a garden centre when it re-opens on the day after Boxing Day to see all the unsold trees sitting there undecorated and unloved, and just waiting to be thrown away. The potted ones are all right (and I bought a small one to turn into a bonsai tree), but I feel horribly sorry for all the others. they were chopped down and killed for no purpose.