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OP -- so maybe we can learn from you. What do you do to reduce boxes, wrapping paper and such? Or do you forego presents? Have you reached out to Amazon with your concerns?
We have curbside recycling and use it religiously but I'm not sure it doesn't wind up in the landfill.
In recent months, in fact, thousands of tons of material left curbside for recycling in dozens of American cities and towns — including several in Oregon — have gone to landfills.
The thing that makes me feel worst about our carbon footprint isn't the materials gifts. It's flying the five of us to visit family in another part of the country. That dwarves any small amount of cardboard and plastic shrink-wrap that may find its way to our curb after the holidays, but my elderly parents won't live forever and this season is a time for family.
Please don't ever ever feel bad about visiting and loving on your family members. Go visit them more and don't feel guilty!
Just imagine all the planes full of merchandise that are flying cross country every day, all day. Your family making one trip a year is more meaningful and important than the "stuff" taking up space in planes.
We throw our Christmas tree in the back yard and let it sit until late spring. the birds love it. Then we make it out first bonfire of the year. We do not even need charcoal starter to get it burning, just a little left over wrapping paper. it is all very green.
We used to go around and pick them up to refresh the camouflage on the duck boat. It was kind of funny watching us go up the Bay if some of the trees still had tinsel on them.
Please don't ever ever feel bad about visiting and loving on your family members. Go visit them more and don't feel guilty!
Just imagine all the planes full of merchandise that are flying cross country every day, all day. Your family making one trip a year is more meaningful and important than the "stuff" taking up space in planes.
I would never dream of depriving our family the time we're able to spend together at the holidays and other times of the year, but air travel is hardly carbon neutral, and one trip pretty much blows away everything we do for the rest of the year to reduce our carbon footprint.
If those Christmas trees hadn't been cut & used, what would have happened to them at the end of their life-cycle?
Fraser firs - "balsams" - are grown on tree farms at high elevations in western North Carolina with the intention of being used for Christmas trees - drive along the Blue Ridge Parkway, and you can see some of the tree farms in the valleys and on the slopes below. These are cultivated trees, planted and harvested as a crop when they are about five to seven years old (for an average sized Christmas tree) - they are not cut from forests where they grow wild.
Of course, you can also see native Fraser firs growing along the Parkway and in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park and environs at high elevations. Several years ago, the firs were hit by adelgids - tiny insects who infested and ultimately killed many of the beautiful tall "balsams" - fortunately, younger trees were not affected and the forest is regenerating. The young trees have not yet achieved the height of their lost elders, whose ghostly trunks with needle-less boughs still stand, but they do offer some hope for the future.
As for the normal life cycle of Fraser firs, they can reach both great heights and great ages. They provide dense shade, and grow at high elevations with high precipitation. Certain birds - juncos, ravens, some hawks - and red squirrels are common in forests dominated by the balsams, though other animals prefer the more varied forests found at lower elevations. Eventually of course the trees would die of old age, lightning strikes, or other natural causes (assuming the adelgids don't kill them first). The needles would turn a rusty brown and eventually fall, leaving bare branches. These branches would weaken and fall, leaving the tall trunk which would eventually rot and fall to the forest floor, where it would enrich the soil and provide nutrients and perhaps shelter for other plants and animals.
Add me to the list of people who save their amazon boxes to use as weed barrier in my garden. I have to actively remind spouse not to recycle those boxes and esp. the biggest (less work cutting them to flat usefulness).
Long ago I read about "lasagna" gardening and although I do not do mounds any more I still use cardboard sheets as a very effective weed barrier, just put dead leaves and mulch on top of the cardboard and voila looks so clean and neat and weeds-b-gone.
I think we save so much gas and car use ordering online as our nearest big stores are 25 minutes away.
No cut Christmas tree for us. We bought a live blue spruce a couple years ago and planted it and just decorate the entry with lights. It's enough.
When we lived in Balboa California, the residents would bring their Christmas trees to the beach on New Years eve. We would throw them into a pile and set them alight. The 20 minute fire from 100 Christmas trees in a pile was incredible. You had to stand about 100 feet away or it was too hot. Eventually there were complaints from the airport about ten miles away. If the planes flew over the fire during takeoff, the rising heat wave would shake them up more than a little.
There are lots of cool ways you can recycle Christmas trees.
... but air travel is hardly carbon neutral, and one trip pretty much blows away everything we do for the rest of the year to reduce our carbon footprint.
Quit feeling so guilty about being alive.
There is absolutely ZERO evidence that Man is responsible for the rising co2 levels-- it's a coincidence that they have been rising since the Industrial Revolution began, but they actually started rising before that started, and have gone up & down many times before without out help. Why must this latest trend necessarily be our fault?...and we won't even get into the evidence that rising co2 is GOOD for the environment.
Quote:
Originally Posted by CraigCreek
Fraser firs - "balsams" - are grown on tree farms at high elevations in .... .
Good post, but you missed my point. Others here have been lamenting how they dispose of their trees. I merely wish to point out that even if not cut & used for the holiday, Nature would have had to deal with them anyway. Even Steven.
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