The toxic truth about your Christmas tree

Perhaps no Christmas custom is more ubiquitous than building a Christmas tree. It originated in Eastern Europe more than 500 years ago, when people decorated evergreen trees with roses or apples as symbols of Eve and the Garden of Eden. Today, this time-honored tradition is a thriving business that employs nearly 100,000 people, generates nearly $2 billion in revenue, and harvests 25 to 30 million natural Christmas trees annually—about 30 percent of which come from the Pacific Northwest. Sales of real Christmas trees have increased nearly 20 percent since 2020, although fake trees are also on the rise. Artificial trees have drawn criticism for the chemicals used in their production as well as their carbon footprint. But living trees also have disadvantages. One in particular—agricultural chemicals and the insecticides, fungicides, and herbicides used in tree cultivation—has attracted remarkably little attention, in part because of a lack of research on the risk to consumers or farmers. ((This story originally appeared in High Country News and is part of a Climate Desk collaboration.)