How the Grinch Greened Christmas

Though December is packed with holidays ranging from Ugly Sweater Day to Chanukah to Festivus, we wanted to first chat about Christmas.

Let’s start with the Tree

For a lot of people, putting up the Christmas tree is what signals the start of the holiday season. Some households put the tree up before Halloween is over while others will wait it out until Thanksgiving has come and gone. What some people don’t know is that the type of tree means something in terms of sustainability.

It really all boils down to…

Real or Fake

And there’s not a perfect answer.

In America, 3 out of every 4 households put a Christmas tree on display. Out of all those trees, around 80% are fake. These fake trees are usually made from polyvinyl chloride (or PVC) and steel, and PVC is the third-most produced synthetic plastic polymer globally at about 40 million tons per year. That’s 11% of all global plastic production.

Fake Trees might be made out of Plastic but they last longer

True but... Christmas tree farmers aren’t cutting down forests to supply us with a temporary holiday ornament.  

Christmas trees, like other crops (corn, asparagus, etc.) come from a farm, and these farms are doing wonderful things for our environment! First, they utilize unique areas of farmland. Christmas trees flourish amidst rolling hills – which is where most other crops would face a considerable amount of difficulty. Second, Christmas trees help to remove carbon dioxide from our atmosphere. To synthesize sunlight into food (a process known as photosynthesis), plants must take in carbon dioxide. When the plant is alive, it feeds some of the carbon dioxide to bacteria and fungi in the soil through its roots. If the plant dies, it still hands over its stored carbon dioxide through plant matter as it begins to break down! Since Christmas trees grow over such a long period, they store a bunch of carbon dioxide. Fascinatingly, farmers will intentionally leave the tree roots in the ground post-harvest so that they can continue to absorb carbon dioxide – a practice known as carbon farming.

Third, the trees farmed help to preserve land and maintain wildlife habitats just by existing!

But Real Trees are more expensive

Real trees are more expensive in the long run. This is primarily because artificial trees last for so long whereas real trees need to be replaced annually. In recent years we’ve begun to see a record rise in the cost of real trees (a $75 average in 2017). Christmas trees take just under a decade to mature to our Christmas standards – which puts them at about 5 or 6 feet tall. Ten years ago, the United States was facing bouts of recession. In response to this recession, farmers were planting a lot less, leaving us with a higher cost today. Fortunately, the high cost should be temporary as farmers typically replace the trees they’ve cut down with one or more baby trees.

Okay – which tree has a greater environmental impact?

Each tree will emit greenhouse gases at some point, whether it be during the manufacturing process, the agricultural process, or in the disposal. A 6.5-foot artificial tree has a carbon footprint that equals out to almost 90 pounds of carbon dioxide emitted into the atmosphere. That’s more than half a landfilled real tree would emit. For a real tree in the landfill, the primary concern stems from the structure of our landfills. Though the tree will eventually break down, the process of breaking down will produce methane – a known top greenhouse gas. Instead of tossing trees, some people will opt to burn them. By lighting our Christmas trees on fire, we’re still releasing some greenhouses gases, though. As mentioned above, plants store carbon as a process of growth. When we burn them, this stored carbon is immediately introduced back into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. However, artificial trees still emit over 10x as much!

If you or someone you know celebrates with a real tree and wants a new way to dispose of it, there are a few options! You can compost your tree. If it’s potted, you can replant it. There’s also Christmas tree recycling!  Knox County offers free Christmas tree recycling the entire month of January. If you are a resident of the city of Knoxville, you can put your bare tree on the curb for pickup “as time and resources allow between regular leaf collection and monthly brush pick-up”. If you’re not in the city or just want to drop it off, bare trees can be taken to drop-off centers (locations can be found here). What’s the benefit of recycled Christmas trees? Per the Knox County website, “Greenwaste, consisting of leaves, brush, logs, tree branches, grass, etc., typically makes up 20-30% of the total municipal solid waste stream. By recycling Christmas trees, Knox County hopes to raise awareness about the advantage of keeping this type of material out of area landfills, and instead utilizing it to produce mulch and other beneficial soil amendments which can be returned to the landscape.”

Moving Onto the Lights

In American suburbs, light intensity increases by 30-50% around Black Friday every year. It doesn’t even return to normal until after the start of the New Year! All because of Christmas lights! Christmas lights are so prevalent, we can observe them all the way from outer space.

What does all that extra light do?

It can drive up our electricity costs! In recent years, people have begun making the switch from incandescent bulbs to the modern LED. While this saves money on our overall costs, it’s still an expenditure.

Having more lights can also wreak havoc on our view of the stars. In some densely populated areas, 99.5% of the stars people could normally see are actually invisible. In fact, most of humankind can’t even see the Milky Way – including 80% of North Americans.

Not being able to see the Milky Way is a disappointment on its own, but the negative effects of light don’t stop there.

Which brings us to Light Pollution

The International Dark-Sky Association, a non-profit dedicated to protecting the night skies, defines light pollution as “the inappropriate or excessive use of artificial light.” By their standards, light pollution is now among the most chronic environmental disturbances on Earth. In the United States, 99% of us experience some form of light pollution.

Light Pollutions throws off our sleep

Our bodies are reliant on the natural rhythm of the day and night to lull us to sleep. Light begins interacting with our biology starting with photons – a particle representing an amount of light. Photons hit our retinas – a little layer at the back of our eyeball that contains light-sensitive cells. These cells in the retinas trigger nerve impulses that send a signal to our brains based on the lighting. Once these signals reach our brains, they head to a specific knot of neurons, which are cells that aid in creating the nervous system. This specific knot is known as the suprachiasmatic nucleus and it is a central regulator in the brain’s pineal gland. This all relates back to sleep because the pineal gland is what produces melatonin, which is basically a sleep hormone.

Though there are different ways we can introduce melatonin into our bodies, melatonin production occurs naturally at sundown, peaking around midnight. Melatonin works really hard for us, too! It regulates our sleep-wake cycles, lowers our body temperatures, slows our metabolism down, and increases a hormone that reduces our appetites (AKA leptin).

When we mess with our melatonin levels, we’re creating interference with our circadian rhythm. Circadian rhythm is our physical, mental, and behavior daily-cycles. Circadian disruption, caused by dipping melatonin levels, can play a role in heart disease, diabetes, depression, cancer (with emphasis on breast cancer), and general feelings of tired, grogginess, and irritability.

Extra lights also hurt our animals

Some animal life cycles depend on the dark. By creating an excess of light, we are totally altering their ecosystems. Some predators use the night to hunt, with some prey using the darkness as a form of protection. Artificial light disrupts this normal nighttime activity. This can also introduce negative consequences on an animal’s reproductive habits, thereby reducing populations. For some examples of animals being affected by the increased artificial lighting, check this out.

The Good News

Light pollution has impacted tourism all across the world! Finding true dark-sky areas to visit is a sacred task for some people – one you can practice by searching a dark-sky map here. Some organizations are working to create entire markets off of the desire to see a true dark sky. Jasper Dark Sky Festival, for instance, is an annual festival that hosts keynote speakers and varied events dedicated to appreciating the night sky. You can find information on their webpage here.

We gotta talk about what goes under the tree, too

Wrapping paper is a massive area for consumer waste. In 2018, Sundale Research released a report showing that the US spent $12.7 billion on wrapping paper in the year 2017.

What’s important to know is that almost all wrapping paper is not recyclable. And if you’re ever not sure, it’s better to just throw it away so as not to contaminate our recycling bins. Wrapping paper is extremely thin and often cholk-full of inks that make it too difficult to extract the actual paper fibers. In essence, it’s not worth the trouble, time, or cost. If you’re interested in recycling wrapping paper, the best option is to buy uncolored and untreated brown paper. This can go directly in our bins while still providing families with the excitement of tearing gifts open!

However…

If you don’t want to opt for recyclable wrapping paper or a gift bag, there is a traditional Japanese method of wrapping gifts in fabric. The method is call furoshiki and it’s a great alternative to single-use wrapping paper! For step-by-step instructions on how to wrap, go here.

The Take-Away

The holidays are a time for tradition and gratitude – whether that be for ourselves, our families and community, or maybe even the world at large. Some holidays have transpired into a time of aggressive consumption, but the underlining mindfulness is still work acknowledging. As a society, we have some habits worth critically analyzing. None of this means that we should stop buying trees or live in darkness. Rather, we should focus on learning about the impacts of our choices so that we may have a chance to change them for the future.