Being eco-conscious and friendly is increasingly important.
To be eco-friendly is to live your life with the intention of doing the least amount of harm to the world we share and preventing as much harm as possible to our environment with the actions you take every single day, including the holidays!
Many people enjoy putting up a Christmas tree during the winter holidays, with many so excited for the tradition, that they put a tree up as soon as Halloween is over.
Being eco-conscious doesn’t mean you have to give up beloved traditions, but it does mean doing things that reduce your environmental impact, even when it comes to decorating your tree.
Read on for three tips on how to make an eco-friendly Christmas tree.
Real vs Fake Christmas Tree Environmental Impact
Many people automatically assume that buying a real tree is more environmentally sound than an artificial one, but the reality is a little more complicated than that.
When it comes to artificial trees, you have to think about the environmental impact of not just the making of the tree (most of them are made from non-recyclable materials such as PVC and steel), but of the delivery and packaging of those trees.
There are ways to reduce the impact of shipping, packaging, and the amount of waste that is possible with an artificial tree.
For example, instead of ordering a brand new artificial tree, you can thrift one from a local thrift shop, thus reducing the amount of waste.
However, you can’t deny the green impact of buying a real tree, either.
Most people believe that Christmas trees are being chopped out of forests, but in reality, Christmas tree farms supply the bulk of real Christmas trees.
On these farms, as the trees grow, they help to clean the air, fertilize the soil, absorb carbon emissions, and provide a habitat for wildlife, all while being grown on land not suitable for other crops.
Unlike an artificial tree that isn’t always recyclable, when you buy a real tree, you can compost the tree and use it to grow your vegetable garden, or just return it to the earth when the holiday is over.
There are pros and cons to either route you choose to go, but being conscious of these environmental factors means you’re on the way to making an eco-friendly Christmas tree!
How do you make Christmas Tree decorations eco-friendly?
So you’ve picked your Christmas tree out, so now what? Now it’s time for the fun part: decorating the tree!
There are definitely ways to be eco-friendly when it comes to creating the holiday look for your tree.
First, scour your local thrift shops to look for ornaments and other decorative materials that others have decided they no longer need.
In this way, you are reducing not just the effects of shipping and packaging, but you’re also consciously reusing perfectly good decorations!
It’s also easy to find tree decorations that are made from sustainable materials, while supporting eco-friendly artists.
You can usually find decorations like this on Etsy, or your local art mart or fair to reduce your environmental impact even more.
Finally, there are plenty of zero-waste decorations that you can hand make (DIY can be so rewarding!) or find in your environment to decorate your tree with.
By getting creative (find paper, cinnamon sticks, or beads) you can make beautiful decorations that not only reduce waste, but also reduce how much money you’re spending on your tree!
You can also create gorgeous and zero-waste garlands by stringing cranberry, popcorn, eucalyptus, flowers, dried citrus or pinecones together.
If you get creative enough, you can make your Christmas tree not only eco-friendly and beautifully decorated, but you can also spend very little money doing it!
Does Decorate a Christmas Tree with Lights Eco Friendly
No Christmas tree can be complete until that final moment when you plug the lights in and voila!
Unfortunately, it can be difficult to find sufficiently eco-friendly Christmas lights, and they all come with at least some elements of environmental waste in them.
Still, there are ways to make more eco-friendly choices in the kinds of lights you get.
First things first: the most eco-friendly Christmas lights you can have, are the ones you already have in your home.
If it’s your first time decorating a tree, or you can’t find the lights from last year, then your next more eco-friendly step is to hit up — you guessed it — your local thrift shop again.
Many people give away or throw away their “old” Christmas lights when just a few of the bulbs stop working, or a strand stops working.
What they don’t take the time to do is change the fuse or replace burned out bulbs. To change the fuse, it’s a very simple process as every string of Christmas lights has a fuse box in the area you plug the lights in.
Usually, you can just slide the compartment open, take out the old fuse, and replace it with a .10 cent fuse you can buy at your local hardware store.
To fix burned out bulbs, just replace them! The lights become good as new!
I hope you enjoyed these small and simple steps you can take to make a more eco-friendly Christmas tree!
