By Clint Thompson
The Christmas season is a time for food, family and fellowship. An integral part of that annual tradition is putting a Christmas tree or two in your home. Many are cut from a Christmas tree farm before Thanksgiving and erected in homes throughout the Christmas holidays.
Some homeowners prefer artificial trees, though, that would be a mistake, according to one Christmas tree owner. Steve Mannhard, with Fish River Farms in Baldwin County, Alabama, discussed the real versus artificial debate with regards to Christmas trees.
“The main thing to me is (artificial trees are) a terrible environmental choice. I understand the practicality and the ease of it, but I think it’s a terrible environmental choice,” Mannhard said. “I mean the plastic tree made from petroleum with a little lead added to it, and it’s not recyclable and it’s not renewable, whereas these real trees are all recyclable even though they eventually dry out and have to be discarded.
“People use their trees to create a fish habitat. Down here so many of them end up on the beach, and people take their trees down to Gulf State Park. They use it to build sand dunes. I think that is a great idea.”
According to the National Christmas Tree Association, there are between 25 million and 30 million real Christmas trees sold in the U.S. every year and close to 350 million real Christmas trees being grown on Christmas tree farms in the U.S. There are almost 15,000 farms producing Christmas trees in the U.S.
Most of the artificial trees (85 percent) used across the world are manufactured in China.