Recently, a friend posted this on Facebook:

just curious to know why environmentally conscious people buy real Christmas trees? am i missing something?

I think she was; surely the carbon footprint of manufacturing, shipping and eventually disposing of fake trees is worse for the environment than tree farms, where trees are grown as crops, right? It’s ain’t exactly clear-cropping trees off a mountain (the one complaint I found about these farms is that some use pesticides, otherwise, what’s not to love about them?). Give us your two cents in the comments section.

However, there are some other solutions that should really satisfy the tree-hugging crowd either way; those that upcycle materials like bottles, cans and even over in Belgium, those throwaway extra pieces of china that no longer match anything. Here’s a peek at some very clever tree reuse projects.

1. Design Boom recently posted a 30′ -high tree in Brussels, Belgium, composed of  over 5,000 donated pieces of blue and white china. The tree is by the design firm mooz and it is super cool:

2. Over on Flickr, another lovely tree is made of bottles was beautifully shot by Flickr member gdanny:

found via rubyreusable

3. Here’s a living room tree made out of just-the-right shade of green glass bottles:

4. This outdoor beer can version could bring in a pretty penny at the metal scrap yard:

3 and 4 have been labeled “redneck Christmas trees.” I think we can come up with a much nicer name than that, though it’s eluding me at the moment, because “beer hugger tree” is not a great tagline. Let me know if you come up with a better name for them in the comments section!