Mindy Tan Photography » Blog of a female wedding photographer in Singapore

Reposting an old Straits Times article – For those looking to buy a Christmas tree.

To summarize, trees are greener if you reuse a plastic tree for at least tree years. And those looking to buy a real pine tree should get one that’s been shipped, not flown by air.
It’s also possible to have your used real tree compost as wood chips, and back to the ground as nutrients.

I just got back from Bordeaux and the Christmas market there has barely gotten into full swing. It is too early for Christmas in many parts of the world that would possibly snow this month. Christmas? The French laugh.
But in Singapore, shops are revving up in that ‘festive spirit’. Think. Christmas commercialism, a trap too much for our own good?

Before you plunge to get a real air flown tree from Norway that takes 10years to grow and mature (nevermind that it’s from a farm), more gift wrapping, more presents one doesn’t need, please reconsider.

14 December 09  The Straits Times
by Victoria Vaughan

How green is your Christmas tree?
POP quiz: Which leaves a bigger carbon footprint, a real tree shipped from Norway, or a fake made in China?

The answer is the tree produced from plastic, which is made from fossil fuels.

But a plastic tree that is reused for three to five years will have lower carbon emissions than a real one, which is replaced yearly after travelling thousands of kilometres to Singapore.

This year, 12,000 Christmas fir trees travelled from their wintry homes in Northern Europe and the United States to Singapore homes, hotels and malls, where they will impart their woody fragrance.

This is a big leap from the average of 7,000 trees that were brought here each year over the last four years. And more people are hankering after the real thing.

Only a few are left at Ikea, which has been selling real Christmas trees since 1990. It imported 2,100 trees from Sweden and Denmark this year by sea in refrigerated containers. They cost $49 to $159, depending on size.

Deputy store manager Lars Svensson said: ‘Christmas came early for Ikea Singapore with demand for the live Christmas trees exceeding expectations…Next year, we will boost our quantities to ensure we can meet the demand, which we expect to be even larger next year.’

Nurseries, such as Candy Floriculture and Far East Flora in Thomson Road, also report an increase in demand for real Christmas trees.

Since the early 1990s, both nurseries have sold about 1,000 real trees – sourced from the US – each year, and expect them to be sold out this time round.

Candy Floriculture director Sharon Goh said: ‘More people appreciate a live tree now. They live in small units and don’t have space to store an artificial tree. Also real trees give out a nice fragrance.’

The trees cost $40 to $14,000 – which was a record two years ago when a 12m-tall tree was supplied to Pan Pacific Hotel.

Miss Goh said that so far, no customer has expressed concern about the environmental impact of having a real Christmas tree. The plant and flower wholesaler

offers a service that collects used trees for recycling into mulch for planting.

Similarly, Ikea’s customers can return trees for recycling into woodchucks and mulch, which are used in parks in the first two weeks of January.

Christmas trees adorn not only private homes – the biggest can be found in hotels and malls.

Of the nine hotels interviewed, three had a real Christmas tree, three had opted for artificial trees, and the rest had a combination of the two.

The real trees, 3m to 7.5m tall, are mostly sourced from the US, brought in by sea and will be recycled after the festive season.

The hotels that had artificial trees said they reused them.

A spokesman for the InterContinental Singapore said: ‘Our hotel believes in recycling and being environmentally friendly. We reuse our Christmas tree every year, adding different decorations to jazz it up.’

At malls, efforts to come up with the most impressive Christmas trees often lead to bigger and bigger specimens.

This year, the tallest tree, at 83m, is at the Singapore Flyer. Its spokesman said it will recycle its Christmas decorations and materials for the Chinese New Year.

At VivoCity, a fake tree ‘grows’ a foot taller every year. Its main structure is made of mild steel and has been reused every year since 2007.

After several years of going without a tree, Tangs will put up a 10m-tall fake tree and use energy-saving fairy lights and baubles made of recycled materials.

The decorations will be reused next year after being touched up in a different colour, said a spokesman.

The tree’s leaves are made of a reflective material to catch the sunlight and sparkle during the day, while reflecting light from the surrounding decorations at night. ‘This way, we won’t need that many fairy lights and need to switch them on only at night,’ the spokesman added.

Recycling a real tree can reduce its carbon footprint to a point where owning one does not leave such a negative impact on the environment.

Otherwise, that real tree, though lovely, is hardly green at all when it has to be transported thousands of miles.

Dr Michael Quah, principal fellow at the Energy Studies Institute at the National University Singapore, estimates that if a 10kg tree in a forest in Norway were to be cut down, taken by rail to the capital Oslo, then flown to Singapore, where it is transported by road from Changi and then burned after use – it would emit 0.045 tonnes of carbon – equal to the carbon footprint of a person flying from Singapore to Kuala Lumpur.

If it is brought in by sea, the emission would be cut to a third – 0.016 tonnes.

If all Singapore’s 12,000 Christmas trees went through the air freight cycle, they would emit about 550 tonnes of carbon dioxide, the footprint of six return trips to the moon by plane. If they were brought in by sea rather than by air, the carbon cost would shrink to about 200 tonnes.

Dr Quah said the biggest impact would come from burning the trees after use, with 0.015 tonnes of carbon being emitted per tree. ‘If the tree is recycled, there would still be carbon emissions as it breaks down, but it would not be as great as burning it,’ he said.

There are several places that compost trees into wood chips.

Dr David Kamaraj, a soil scientist at Kiat Lee Landscape and Building in Kranji Crescent, said there is an increase in such business after Christmas.

‘Compost acts as a soil conditioner. It retains moisture, acts as mulching material, increases microbial load in soil, loosens the soil and supplies nutrients.’

So Christmas trees can be greener if you keep reusing an artificial tree for three to five years or recycle a real one brought to Singapore by sea, after the festive season is over.

Mr Samuel Wee, 30, who has been buying a real Christmas tree for the past four years, said he may stop.

‘Four years ago, I read a Straits Times article on real trees and it spurred my interest. I like the way they look and smell, and they really add to the Christmas mood. When I host parties, it’s a talking point,’ he said.

The property agent said he became concerned about the environment this year.

‘When I bought my tree from Far East Flora, I was told that they take about 10 years to grow. It’s not just Singapore that uses Christmas trees, so there must be a lot of trees chopped down,’ he said. ‘If it becomes a global issue, I may stopping buying real trees for the greater good.’

vvaughan@sph.com.sg

Additional reporting by Ben Nadarajan