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December 8, 2007
How To
How To
If you're going to be bringing a giant plant into your home this holiday season, makes sure it's organic. Some Christmas tree farms use dozens of toxic pesticides and chemical colorants. Where do you find organic trees? EcoBusinessLinks has an incomplete list. Green Promise has a few more. If you don't find an organic tree seller on one of these lists, add the name of your town to this Google search, and hopefully you'll find one.
Comments (4)
Are you kidding me? You want to make sure that the trees we grow, chop down, and then cover with decorations are organic? Here's a crazy idea: take the money you were going to waste on your 100% certified organic tree and give it to a human being in need.
Posted by Jim | December 8, 2007 6:35 PM
Why don't you save the forests instead and get an artificial tree? That way, everyone wins. The trees stay alive, so everyone gets oxygen to breathe, and your family isn't hurt by pesticides... besides, you can reuse an artificial tree, so you're also recycling...
Posted by Gary | December 8, 2007 6:47 PM
I think what Amira was trying to get at here was that there's the option of an organic tree as opposed to one that was farm-grown for Christmas. I know out here on the East Coast there are many tree farms that are used specifically to grow Balsam Fir's for Christmas. They're used as lucrative cash crops. And especially where people are bringing these into their homes, and will continue to bring them into their homes, its nice to know that somewhere out there people are being cautious about what goes into growing them. Ourselves, our families, our pets are all around them for the holidays and we don't need to risk pesticides and herbicides rubbing off and making them all sick.
Posted by Adam | December 10, 2007 7:42 AM
Those who belittle others in their search for organic trees have clearly not got a clue about how most Trees (landscape and Christmas) have been grown in 99% of the Tree Farms and Nurseries. Lots of very potent chemicals (more than for fruit trees) is sprayed repeatedly on these trees right up til their harvested and shipped. For example: If the tree came from South of Central Tenn. then it came from the fireant exclusion zone and had to be sprayed/dipped 6 times in 3 days with Dursban ( a known carcinogen banned by the EPA). Dursban was exempted for treefarmers and had a 30 year+ half life and is one of the worst of all chemicals. Even milder chemicals like Roundup or Atrazine (both used as Herbicides) have bad effects on humans and animals. Many artificial trees have a host of toxics used in their manufacturing process. The real story is wild or organically grown is the only safe way to get a real tree.
Posted by Ren | February 12, 2008 3:58 PM