Have Yourself a Merry Flat-Packed Christmas
by Collin Dunn, Corvallis, OR, USA 
on 12. 6.07
If a living Christmas tree or otherwise green tree isn't for you, and you don't want to go with synthetic, then Australian design firm Buro North has something for you. For the modernist not tied to tradition, they've designed a reusable, flat-pack tree to decorate your home in the spirit of a greener holiday for years to come.
The plywood "tree," which really consists of four identical CNC-routed planes that fold together when not in use (and for ultra-efficient shipping), may not be quite as festive (and green, in color at least) as a more traditional tree, but if green the lifestyle is more important to you than green the color, it certainly beats the plastic reusable tree (and might even be greener than a real tree, especially if you believe that Christmas trees contribute to global warming). If you're on the fence about it's green characteristics, Buro North did a life cycle assessment [PDF] of their tree vs. a more traditional pine tree; guess which tree came out on top? Hit the jump for more pics of one possible vision of the future of Christmas. ::Buro North via ::MoCo Loco and ::dezeen
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and, if you desperately needed it to be the colour green - paint or stain it!
They obviously didn't do an economic analysis! Two sheets of ply and 60 minutes of CNC time should not cost $1400.
I would also dispute the veracity of their LCA, at least for the US. Here it is possible to get a permit to cut your own tree from a national forest. This helps thin overgrown forest (something the Forest Service would do anyway), and if you live near one, makes the transportation distance very small. Most of the remaining impact they show for the real tree comes from "disposal in landfills," but in the US 93% of real christmas trees are recycled through community programs (http://www.recycleyourchristmastree.com/about.html). I'm surprised that's not the case in Australia.
"I'm surprised that's not the case in Australia."
My experience will not reflect everyone's, but being from Australia, that's not the case because our forests are generally not made of pine trees and nobody has real trees. By which I mean, I had a real tree once in my whole life, when I lived in a cool region, and it was a pain in the arse. I've known one single other person, ever, to have had real trees. She was a country girl from British stock. Mostly people have plastic ones, and generally you can get plastic ones that look pretty good. I never grew up in a culture of having real trees so they look pretty good to me!
I'm sure there's fancy people and country people around who like the real thing, but there's the reason for the absence of such programs!