Hello, FilterForGoodians. It’s the holidays, and more than the food, the family and the presents, I love the whole ritual of the holidays. We light fires in the fireplaces, string lights on our houses and put up Christmas trees. It’s just after Thanksgiving that people start asking about where you might be traveling for the holidays; what’s on your Christmas list; and are you putting up a tree? That question, at least when it’s asked of me, is almost always followed by another question: Is your tree real or fake?

To tell you the truth, and I never really thought about the environmental impacts of my Christmas tree. For the record, we put up a fake, or artificial, tree, and admittedly it has its pros and cons. I’m certain that my fake tree isn’t the best use of my planet’s resources, but is cutting down a perfectly healthy tree any better? Never fear, FilterForGoodians. I’ve found a company (albeit based in California) that’s solved our little conundrum. It’s called the Living Christmas Tree Company.**

How It Works

Rent a living Christmas tree from the LCTC, and they’ll deliver a locally-grown tree (root ball and all) to your home or office, and then after the holiday, they’ll pick it up and bring it back to the nursery until next year. How simple. It’s more like tree adoption than buying. I really like this idea because the holidays are already a time for families, so imagine adopting a tree and using the same one for years. Perhaps it might even grow right along with your family.

Environmental Checklist (from site)**

1. Raising Awareness: Possibly the most important initiative is challenging the general public to re-evaluate their practices by offering a dynamic alternative to artificial and cut trees. This is not your grandmother’s tree; this is your children’s tree.
2. In-Home Safety and Air Quality: Living trees are less flammable than either cut trees or polyvinyl fake trees. Living trees also contribute to positive indoor air quality. Plastic trees can off-gas harmful chemicals into the air and have been found to contain lead dust. Commercial fire retardants used on cut trees contain known carcinogens.
3. Local Varieties, Locally Grown: Selecting trees that can grow in the communities where they will be rented reduces the need for water, labor, pesticides, and heavy fertilizers, and increases the success rate of the trees’ transition into and out of the home.
4. Locally Delivered: Unlike cut trees from Oregon and artificial trees from China, TLCT trees don’t travel thousands of miles. Online ordering further reduces our carbon footprint and allows us to optimize delivery routes. Instead of dozens of single trips to and from tree lots, our clean burning Bio Diesel trucks deliver dozens of trees in a single trip.
5. Urban Infill: Their trees are potted and can be grown over ANY flat surface, including abandoned parking lots and brownfields. In the off-season, their trees are still working hard reducing visual blight and heat sinks, removing up to a ton of carbon from the atmosphere, and producing enough oxygen for 16 citizens per acre.
6. Urban Forestry: Every year, they will have hundreds of trees that are either unfit or too large for renting. These trees become part of an Urban Reforestation Project earning Carbon Tax Credits and increasing property values while battling global warming, improving air quality and storm water run-off.
7. Landfill Diversion: Up to 80% of green waste still ends up in the landfill as daily cover. Cities are required to reduce their amount of landfill refuge and report on specific programs to meet these goals. Every tree rented is one less discarded tree requiring collection and disposal, potentially saving the county $100,000’s annually.
8. Acting Globally and Locally: Their aggressive community outreach programs have allowed them to partner and fund-raise alongside charitable organizations. They are able to donate trees to needy families and partner with nearly 50 local non-profits.

Have you adopted a tree from this company? If so, comment below and tell us about it! Send us your pics and post them here on the blog.

They even have an Eco-Holiday Store!**

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