Making the case for plastic Christmas trees
As the holidays come closer and closer, many families struggle to find a yearly tradition that is both affordable and sturdy: a Christmas tree. Traditional Christmas trees can cost anywhere from $400 to over $1,000 depending on size and availability. This stress of finding the perfect moment when the tree will be perfectly ripe, yet buying one before the rush hour of other families is exhausting.
Even after buying the tree, there are still many considerations, such as temperature to keep the tree alive, proper water, decorations, and clean-up of messy needle-like leaves. Christmas trees can also drop decorations if improperly attached. However, there is a preventable alternative to this traditional custom, which is a plastic Christmas tree.
Plastic Christmas trees are just as useful as the traditional Christmas tree but with many more benefits. Plastic trees are much lighter, adding less weight to the drive home. Plastic trees can also come customized with features like being flocked or colored differently, and come in all sizes. There is no rot or smell from plastic trees, and most plastic trees come with a stand that won’t scratch the floor.
Due to the weight of the traditional wooden tree, shipping costs are added to the already expensive tree. Alternatively, plastic trees can be bought from almost all stores at a quarter of the price. Plastic trees last anywhere from 20 to 30 years and match in carbon emissions with traditional trees by the four-year mark.
The traditional Christmas tree can bring lots of hardship, from delivery to house, compared to “realistic” trees, which do the job ten times better for a much lower cost. As many Trojan families head into the upcoming Christmas break, it’s good to ask which tree you will buy: “the real or realistic?”
I have personally never had a plastic Christmas tree but I have seen some and they are really realistic it’s pretty impressive how they do it. I think though one of the main appeals of a real tree is the actual process of getting it. Going out to the Christmas tree farm in itself is a Christmas celebration, and a plastic tree can’t fill in that role.
My family uses a plastic Christmas tree, its the same tree we use every year, which is nice because it carries a sentimental aspect. The ease of setting up and cleaning up a plastic tree is also positive over a real tree that scatters pine needles everywhere. Which are further benefits, besides just being eco-friendly.
I think that plastic Christmas trees are a good idea because most of the time the plastic would be used for something else anyways as there is so much of it, and trees, while sustainable and more eco-friendly as they are compostible, take much more than a year to grow and as a result the number of trees would be in net negatives.
What type of Christmas trees are you buying for 400-1000???
I do not see an issue with plastic Christmas trees as not only does it avoid deforestation, but also cities usually use real trees as a continuation of the tradition.
While I don’t love the use of plastic, I believe that it is more eco friendly rather than chopping down actual trees each year, leading to deforestation. I think that the economic aspect is also incredibly worth having a plastic tree.