Rent a Christmas tree? Sure, but not for $100
After Christmas, when you haul that tree out to the curb for pick-up, do you feel a tinge of guilt?
Remarkably, that’s the question somehow driving a fast-growing industry in Canada: Christmas tree rentals.
Yes, unbeknownst to many, including this writer, there are services now across North America that offer Christmas tree rentals, hoping to capitalize on the green public’s fear that using up a new tree each holiday is, as one insider tells the CBC, “the biggest waste of (the) resource.”
According to a new feature in USA Today, Christmas tree rental agencies have been popping up across the western United States of late, but the biz has been progressing steadily in Canada, too.
At least two B.C. firms appear to provide the industry’s backbone north of the border. The business surely makes sense on paper, but how practical is it?
Burnaby’s Evergrow Christmas Trees charges $100 for a rental each year, including home pick-up and drop-off of the tree before and after the holidays. Once you’re finished, the trees are then taken to nurseries and habitat restorations where they will be replanted, instead of turned into mulch as most recycled Christmas trees are.
And that, of course, is where the Christmas tree rental business hopes to make its bones. Conventional tree farms charge only around $25 for a real tree, but they're often used just once and then tossed away. Rental firms hope to tug on eco-friendly Canucks’ heartstrings by ensuring the trees, after your presents are unwrapped from under them, won’t go to waste.
Some companies in the U.S. even offer barcode scanning, advertising that, if you want, you can reserve your same tree the next year.
Honourable initiative? No doubt. Certainly, this will appeal to a big percentage of Canadians – and, we imagine, tree delivery and pick-up is something everyone would relish.
But that price point might be the thing that keeps rentals modest in Canada for years to come. By this poll, people simply don’t want to pay $100 each year for a tree, especially when a fake, reusable one can be theirs for about the same price.
Green movement or not, would you ever pay $100 to rent a Christmas tree each year?
By Jason Buckland, MSN Money
Posted by: Don MacLeod | Dec 14, 2021 9:14:37 AM
Long and Short of it all.....Just talking these perfectly shaped trees and throughing them to the curbe three weeks later should be a chrime....Come on think about it ...think about the millions of beautiful trees been distroyed...myself i spent a $300.00 and bought a artifical tree and it dose look real and ready to use again for next few years....Yes i have for years thought wht not put a tree in a pot and plant again in the spring or as you sat rent a tree.The time you go out hunting for a tree ,your gas not to mention the mess when one could be dropped of and picked up $100.00 dollare is a fair price.....If thei dosnt make scece than nothing dose ...dose it...............D.J.Macleod
Posted by: Craig Seadon | Dec 14, 2021 2:01:24 PM
I love the smell of a real tree. I'd try a rental once and then decide from there if I'd do it again.
Posted by: Richard | Dec 14, 2021 7:32:52 PM
DJ Macleod... Having access to a computer and being allowed to butcher the English language by posting a comment filled with more than a dozen spelling mistakes should also be a "chrime".
Posted by: wade | Dec 14, 2021 8:19:06 PM
Richard...so he does not spell well
i dont ither , but if i had to pick between you and him as a friend...you lose
Bullys suck
Have a merry christmas
Posted by: BOBBY FLY | Dec 15, 2021 12:02:08 AM
I'll be your friend Richard, I was thinking the same thing about D.J.s hatchet job. I find it hard to take someone seriously when they demonstrate they can can spell beautiful but follow it up with a gem like dose! 3 TIMES!!
Posted by: LISA | Dec 15, 2021 12:25:18 AM
Are you all retarded? Did you forget what the question was, not who can win a spelling bee.
Posted by: Randy kubbernus | Dec 15, 2021 12:42:48 AM
excellent LISA oops
Posted by: Larry | Dec 15, 2021 1:15:45 AM
Iwas the only kid in my class that never got a star for spelling. still can't spell very good unless I take my time and recheck every word. i have to ask the wife how to spell words all the time. and i have a 140 I.Q i wounder if D.J was one of those kids with all the gold stars.
Posted by: Dave | Dec 15, 2021 1:29:58 AM
You know, I often hear people say, "Oh you can do that cheaper" or "You can buy that cheaper". Yes, you can always do something cheaper. You can take a tour group instead of a vacation on your own. You can eat at home instead of a restaurant. You can buy a fake Christmas tree instead of a real one or a rental! It all comes down to the quality of the experience, and what you hope to remember afterwards. I have been using a fake tree for 10 years, and the tree is not important...it's the ornaments that were hand made by my kids 25 years ago, or given as gifts over the years. This article is a little empty people as it seems to me that the tree is not the focus. It's the memories that will return from previous Christmases, and the new ones that will be added this year. Spend $100 for a rental if you got it...buy one from the Boy Scouts...use a fake. Canada has enough trees, and these trees are farmed...they are not an endangered species. It's what happens around the tree that matters. Sorry people...this article is empty of anything important. Cheers!
Posted by: Snarky1 | Dec 15, 2021 5:36:54 AM
Well,
I have not had a tree in years, I put lights on the trees in my yard. No need to cut trees down. :-)
Posted by: Frank Schnare | Dec 15, 2021 6:33:44 AM
This all sounds wonderful in an ideal world. We have families that can barely afford food and they certainly cannot afford 100.00 for a tree that they usually pay 20.00 to 30.00 dollars for. This like many other things is a load of bull the tree cutting lots cut and replant they don't destroy forests they actually ensure healthier forests no i am not a tree farmer. This is just another person trying to make a buck off of a misguided public and placing the blame on our ecology. Also the commercialism and high prices have all but ruined Christmas for children the Christmas tree is one of the few remaining symbols of Christmas and not to mention the industry that all this will ruin. Somebody needs to smell the coffee.
Posted by: Steve | Dec 15, 2021 7:04:31 AM
I think I have to agree with frank on this one. It would seem logical that a tree farmer needs to replenish his stock so he can stay in business. Accounting for trees that don't grow well and hedging against uncontrollable conditions, they probably have to plant two for every one they sell. And since the used trees are actually being used primarily as mulch material, which helps to retain moisture for planted materials and not heading to landfill, they are a win win. One other point to keep in mind, and please correct me if I'm wrongI don't believe that any of this process is actually contributing to greenhouse emissions, which means it remains emission neutral.
Posted by: Bob | Dec 15, 2021 7:22:09 AM
Way to go, Steve! You stuck to the subject, and made an intelligent and credible argument, which I'm sure will tee off certain tree huggers, and all without any spelling mistakes!
Posted by: jim | Dec 15, 2021 10:14:32 AM
i think we should get back to the problem of the spelling. the issue here i think is wether or not we cna use the right words and or spelling to convey what we want to say.
i agree the spelling is horrible and i think that this persons comment just took all the air out of the tree huggers cause
lets go out and chop down a few trees and make pencils and paper out of them and teach those poor basterds that cannt spell how to spell
Posted by: wade | Dec 16, 2021 8:08:27 AM
we cna use the right words and or spelling to convey what we want to say.
i agree the spelling is horrible and
LMAO well put ....not JIM
What is wrong with you people , got to belittle someone who at least was on the topic
\I say and will again
BULLYS SUCK
you know who you are
we cna use the right words and or spelling to convey what we want to say.
i agree the spelling is horrible and \
Posted by: clink | Dec 17, 2021 4:43:41 PM
i wanna talk about dinosaurs.
or math.
Posted by: William | Dec 19, 2021 4:30:16 AM
For me, it has to be a real tree or no tree at all.
Posted by: Western Guy | Dec 19, 2021 6:07:39 PM
Kettle calling the pot black. Jim I guessing you "cannt" spell either.
Posted by: burnaby painter | Dec 21, 2021 5:15:11 PM
This is great! I wish I didn't have a xmas tree yet. Im going to tweet this!
I also think $100 is ok.