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A Green, Green Christmas
By crooky | December 24, 2007
This Christmas Eve, two environmental policy issues related to the holidays haunt my thoughts. First, the looming policy shift around plastic carrier bags. Second, the lack of attention paid to the Christmas tree industry. I believe that many Canadian jurisdictions, like Leaf Rapids, Manitoba are preparing to institute a plastic carrier bag ban. At the same time, there is little talk of the environmental impact of Christmas trees - both fake and real.
Let’s start with the bags. Advocates of plastic bag bans claim:
Needless to say, they’re bad news. Ireland has been rapidly reducing its carrier bag consumption by introducing a 0.15 Euro levy in 2002 and they claim that national consumption has gone down 90% since the levy was introduced. The funds from the levy go to fund recyling programs. This seems like a pretty good option and a bit of a softer touch than a complete ban.
The alternative has to be heavy-duty, reusable plastic or cloth carrier bags. The environmental impact of producing these are much greater than normal carrier bags but over the long term, if used correctly, they have a far smaller environmental impact. Paper bags, which were the norm when I was a kid, are far, far worse from an environmental impact. Craft paper - the material that paper shopping bags are made from - is wickedly energy intensive to produce.
At one point in my career - I worked at a Dow Chemicals plant in Fort Saskatchewan, Alberta that made the base materials used to make plastic carrier bags. Natural gas and liquid chlorine were the main feedstocks. Not a pretty picture environmentally. My point, at this time of year is that you think about how many plastic carrier bags you used when you bought your groceries for your Christmas dinner, your gifts, the sleeves that your wrapping paper came in. I didn’t do my part this year. I don’t have re-usable bags but I think I will for next year. By then, I suspect, we’ll be well on our way to a bag ban or a bag levy anyhow.
On the topic of trees - there is a quiet debate over what is better - fake trees (which are made from some of the same kinds of things that carrier bags are made from) or real trees (millions of which are cut down every year worldwide for our edification and ultimately disposed of in a short span of time). I haven’t been able to find any definitive information on the carbon footprint of real Christmas trees but the consensus is clearly that live trees (in a pot that you re-use every year) are better. Trees are great carbon sequesterers and when you cut them down, the carbon is still sequestered. The important thing is how you dispose of them. If you burn them, the carbon is getting back into the atmosphere. If you recycle them, it’s probably a good way to maintain the sequestered carbon.
Plastic trees, on the other hand, have potential to be “green” but only if they’re made from plastic not derived from petroleum. Corn plastic, for example, would be a good alternative. Even with the materials trees are currently made of, the fact that we re-use them for decades at a time must over time, surpass cut trees in terms of environmental efficiency.
I’m not trying to put a negative spin on Christmas. I love Christmas. I just hope that next year, when we’re all planning our holidays, that we keep some of these factors in mind and at least try to reduce our waste while we expand our waists with turkey. I’ll save the article on the carbon footprint of farmed turkey for Thanksgiving.
Happy Holidays!
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Aaron “Crooky” Cruikshank is the Principal and Founder of Friuch Consulting. He has written professionally about science and technology for ten years.
Topics: Policy, Technology |
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