Oh, Xmas Tree

It’s that time of year when the sidewalks are littered with dead blue spruce and Douglas firs. This, as an Arborist Avenger, gives me a sad.

Not everyone has land or space to plant live, handsome beauts. I get that. There are alternatives to killing oxygen giving greens.

You can go all DIY fun…wacky even. This link is to a YouTube vid which shows how to make your own tree from recycled soda bottles.

A town in Lithuania went full metal beautiful, fun and brill:

Last year, the city of Kaunas, in Lithuania, decided it would be in the Christmas spirit to kill two turtledoves with one stone. Instead of cutting down a tree to decorate, the city enlisted artist Jolanta Šmidtienė to dream up a holiday decoration where no plants had to die. And, at the same time, it reduced waste by finding a new use for nearly 40,000 discarded plastic bottles. (source)

Lesse now, the burg:

• gave a local artist a fab gig – that’s good!
• the artist recycled a shit-ton of plastic – that’s good!
• and made a glorious, ethereally awesome, luminescent stunner – that’s good!

Even more better:

The tree left Kaunas’ funds earmarked for Christmas decorations essentially untouched, since the whole tree came out of the trash. (By contrast, New York City’s Rockefeller Center tree costs tens of thousands of dollars.

They saved a big wad of dough. This is so full of WIN!

Not everyone wants to funk up the place around the holidaze. What to do, what to do?!

I looked on line for realistic looking artificial Christmas trees made from recycled materials. The company Oncor makes ‘em. They’re also committed to donating at least 1% of gross annual sales to 1%FTP-approved non-profit environmental organizations.
 
Way cool. BUT the recycled plastic is PVC which ain’t good for children and other living things.

The Soft Landing site has a great post up, How to Find a Non-toxic (i.e.: not PVC) Artificial Christmas Tree. FYI, it ain't easy. They also go into the care and not-feeding of a PVC tree.

What about us’ns here in Valhalla? Eh, we’ve run outta space for planting trees but it’s not like I’m a Christmas tree sort of broad. I like the pretty colored lights and the ornaments. They look way cool draped around my gryphon.