Sustainable Christmas Trees Delivered to Your Door

November 3rd, 2009, 8 Comments »

Yesterday on Springwise I read about The Living Christmas Company, which delivers living, potted Christmas trees to your home in southern California. They pick them up after the holidays, and replant them. In fact, a family can get the same tree year after year.

I tweeted about this clever idea, and the Twitter account Climate Smart pointed me to Carbonsync (yes, I am troubled by the inconsistent capitalization of their name on their site–let’s move on). They’re offering a similar delivery and pickup service to your home in and around Vancouver.

The Living Christmas Company doesn’t indicate pricing on their site (or, at least, I couldn’t find prices). Carbonsync offers their rental tree program for the princely sum of $125.99. It’s been a very long time since I bought a Christmas tree, but that seems pretty rich. How much does your average Christmas tree cost? $25? $40? Maybe $60 for a really fancy tree?

I’m usually happy to pay a green tax, but 100% feels a bit steep. If we assume that delivery and pickup cost $40 or $50, then I guess that’s in the ballpark. Still, that price point feels a little steep, doesn’t it?

Happily, we’re not really a tree-buying household, so I’ll remain $125.99 richer.

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Tomorrow is World Water Day

March 22nd, 2007, 2 Comments »

“The next war in the Near East will not be about politics, but over water.” -Former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali

You wouldn’t know if from today’s weather here in Vancouver, but I suspect that water will supplant climate change as the world’s green cause celebre by the mid-century. For most of the world, there’s too many people and too little potable drinking water.

Tom, the $5 philanthropist, writes that tomorrow is World Water Day. From the, uh, day’s website:

World Water Day is an international day of observance and action to draw attention to the plight of the more than 1 billion people world wide that lack access to clean, safe drinking water. Celebrated since 1993, World Water Day was designated in 1992 when the United Nations (UN) General Assembly passed a resolution. With each passing year, the observance has grown larger and stronger.

There’s a bunch of walks to raise awareness for this cause. Alternately, if you have some extra cash burning a hole in your wallet, why not donate to my friends’ project to drill a well for a village in Liberta?

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