It’s a tell-tale sign that the holidays are over when discarded Christmas trees line sidewalks, waiting to be picked up from city services.
But there are other ways to use your tree after Dec. 25 that will give it a second life and also be good for the environment, says Dan Kraus, senior conservation biologist at the Nature Conservancy of Canada.
“We’ve come a long way from the old days when most trees ended up in a landfill, and the municipalities do a great job of recycling your trees. But there is another way you can get rid of it,” Kraus said, adding this is especially helpful if you miss tree pickup day.
Freshly cut Christmas trees are a $77-million business in Canada, with half of the country’s Christmas trees exported to the U.S. every year. More than 2.2 million trees are exported from the provinces to other countries for Christmas, according to 2017 data from Statistics Canada.
Finding alternative ways to use your tree, especially returning it back to nature, is a great way to provide benefits to local wildlife as opposed to just turning it into mulch, Kraus said.
Leaving the tree in your backyard or a nearby forest
Kraus recommends cutting off the branches of your tree and placing it in your backyard so that it can slowly turn back into soil and provide a habitat for animals while it decomposes.
“It’s thinking about how nature recycles in the forest. You can learn about that, especially if you have kids,” he said. “The tree is such an iconic thing, and to see it have this second life … and provide a habitat for wildlife over the winter.”
During the winter, while the tree will still be green and have its needles, it can provide shelter for birds, Kraus said.
By the spring, if you place the trunk and the branches in your backyard garden, flowers will grow up around them and the branches will slowly start to break down.
“By the next summer … that material will start to turn into soil, and the actual trunk of your tree will provide habitat. Things like toads will live underneath it,” he said. Within two or three years, the entire tree will become soil, he added.
It’s perfectly safe for animals and any pets that might want to play in the backyard, and it’s a way to give the tree back to the natural ecosystem, he said.
“Just thinking about how things work in forests, we can learn a little bit about that,” he said. “It’s a chance for people to do something different with your tree. It’s definitely a little lighter on the environment.”
If you don’t have a backyard, you can simply leave the tree in a nearby forest and the same process will happen to the tree, says Marie-Paule Godin, operations manager at Tree Canada.
“There’s also animals that will eat the foliage on the Christmas tree, so the needles, including browsing animals like deer,” she said. “In the winter, they look for food.”
The tree is a naturally biodegradable element that’s already a piece of the forest, so it’s not invasive, she adds.
Getting crafty with your tree
Using your tree for home decor is another popular method, Godin said.
“You could cut off the branches and use them for decorative purposes outdoors around your pathway, walking up to your door,” she said.
Slicing up the trunk of your tree into small discs could create coasters, or you could hang them up as a memory of your tree from that year, she adds.
Sites like Pinterest have instructions on other crafts to create from your tree, including more rustic decorations.
Understanding where your tree has come from and learning about its natural life cycle is an opportunity for Canadians to really connect with the country’s landscape and environment, Kraus said.
“Maybe then when you actually get out to a forest, you’ll start to see the dead wood on the ground and think about what happened to that,” he said.
- Global News