Apparently, most plastic Christmas trees end up in the garbage before their fifth year. This makes them a very poor substitute, ecologically-speaking, for real Christmas trees. It needs to be used for at least 12 years to break even with the average real Christmas tree, from a carbon footprint perspective (3.5kg per real tree).
One option is to rent a live one that can be replanted, but this won’t be cheap, and the mortality rate is high as many of the wild pine trees won’t make it through a centrally heated Christmas.
Wicked Leeks has the low-down on Christmas Tree Farming
Another option is to find one from the RSPB or the National Trust who sometimes clear young pine forests before Christmas, but this involves having one’s own transport and being signed up to the appropriate newsletter.
Read the data from Active Sustainability
