In today’s day and age, most people opt to have a fake Christmas tree rather than a real all natural tree. In this article I will address both sides of this argument and let you decide which you believe is actually best.

The main argument against fake trees is that they are bad for the environment. Manufacturing fake trees contributes green house gasses to the atmosphere and when you throw away the tree, it takes several years to break down and  adds to the copious amounts of pollution in our oceans and landfills. Other than the environmental concerns, there is also the fact that fake trees don’t have the same magic. You don’t get the smell of a real tree or the experience of going to a tree lot and picking out the perfect tree. You don’t get the memories of chasing your siblings or family members around with sticky sap on your hands. Real trees can create memories that fake trees can’t.

On the other side of the argument is convenience. With a fake tree, you don’t have to worry about going to a tree lot early enough to get a good one. You don’t have to worry about the mess of falling needles or sap getting everywhere, and you don’t have to worry about watering the tree. Overall, having a real tree is seen as a hassle. Many will say that fake trees are bad for the environment, but isn’t cutting down more than 50 million trees each year around the world worse for the environment? We are cutting down healthy trees that are in their prime and could be doing photosynthesis and keeping our earth healthy for multiple years. On average, people keep the same fake tree for about 10 years which is a lot longer than people keep real trees. Just because most fake trees are made of plastic, does not mean that all fake trees are. If someone has concerns about the plastic of the fake tree, there are several more eco-friendly fake trees that are made out of more biodegradable materials that people could get.

There are a lot of different factors to consider when thinking about this argument, and, overall, it doesn’t matter what I or anyone thinks. This is a choice you get to make on your own; you get to decide which arguments are important to you and what stance you will take on the faux tree debate.