A real Christmas tree, can we still make it?
On 1 November, I saw the first one already in the corner on Instagram. A Christmas tree (!), how cosy? I immediately felt like getting my baubles out of the shed and picking out a nice one at the Christmas tree shop. The smell of fresh pine needles, that beautiful dark green, those thousands of critters that live in a real Christmas tree, no fake one can compete with that, right? Maybe it does.
It always hurts my heart a little when I see all those trees by the road. Thanks for the fun, adieu and see you never again. I always tried to give my trees a second life in the garden then, but by then they were often done. Needle by needle they lost their lives. And the environment, guys. If it is so dire that people stick to works of art, how can we cut down countless trees for a few weeks under the guise of cosiness?
A rough estimate shows that we Dutch people bonjour about 2.7 million Christmas trees out the door in January. Sprinklr shares that in terms of CO2, it's not too bad per Christmas tree; in comparison, it's about a 25-kilometre car journey. Although I think this is already quite substantial if you multiply this by just our 2.7 million trees, but who am I? The devil is mainly in biodiversity. It's not just about CO2, but also the use of pesticides, the dead fields left behind and what about all the animals that have to find a new home somewhere? Long story short: the real Christmas tree as a disposable item is not good for the environment. So should we all get a fake one? Well, only if you plan to use the fake for at least five to ten years, otherwise it is less sustainable than the real Christmas tree. Of course, you can come up with an alternative to the tree, which is good for the environment.
And what about energy consumption? The gas and electricity bills are no slouch either. Of course, we could use some light in this darkness, unless it's going to bankrupt us. First things first: buy LED lights. Anyone still going into Christmas with incandescent bulbs now is really prehistoric and might as well throw ten-euro notes around outside.
For the sake of convenience, I will assume that you also have those picture-perfect intertwined lights. They're called a treecluster. Yes, you don't know what it's called until you do. With that, you soon have triple the number of lights hanging in your tree. If you then hang a cord outside and have some cosy decoration somewhere in your house, you end up with a maximum of 25 euros per month. But then you can only leave your Christmas lights on for six hours a day.
Aiii, and that, of course, is where things go horribly wrong. All the world started working from home more in the meantime, and that six o'clock in the evening has long since fallen short of what we burn in electricity. If you're of the firm leaving it on 24/7, you'll soon be sitting on 60 (!) euros more per month.
And do you still go for that real tree? Then don't burn it down at New Year's Eve, because that is much worse for the environment than having the tree collected by the municipality.
Source: Sprinklr, Energy price calculator.co.uk
