Good options. But note the first link is a Cloudflare site and should be avoided. This link is more inclusive:
Rosemary! You can have a rosemary houseplant which can be pruned into the shape of a Christmas tree. Then, you can eat its herbs and eventually bring it outside when the seasons change.
A real Christmas tree, sourced and farmed locally and buried in a landfill after the holidays, would remove carbon from the atmosphere.
Please do not do this.
Putting organic material into a landfill where it will decompose anaerobically (without oxygen) creates methane. This methane then leaks from the landfill, accelerating climate change.
There are SO many constructive things you can do with organic material. You can take a dead or dying tree, or one that is otherwise a poor fit for a particular location, and use it to make wood chips for mulching soil; biochar to sequester carbon and enrich compost when added to compost; building materials; firewood and more. All of these things sequester carbon and/or reduce climate emissions by reducing the use of fossil fuels.
Growing a healthy tree just to make some methane with it in a landfill is profane. Please don't send any organic material to a landfill, especially not healthy trees. Leave healthy trees alone unless they're causing trouble (such as by damaging a roof) and instead prioritize the use of dead/dying ones, or those that aren't appropriate for their spot (e.g. shading solar panels) or climate (e.g. trees that require irrigation).
I recently had some healthy trees removed because they were threatening the house. I asked the tree service what they do with the trees. They said they bring them to the landfill. I was shocked because this was during a time when lumber costs quadrupled. I would have expected them to be able to mill it and profit further. They offer the wood to a local artistic carpenter first (at no cost), but that person cannot keep up in the slightest so most of the wood goes to the landfill. I spoke to another carpenter who said elm is too rich in minerals and thus dullens cutting tools so they rejected my offer of free wood. Ultimately it ended up in the landfill.
You’ve inspired a question: considering methane is 25× more harmful than CO₂, is it actually less harmful to burn wood in a fireplace than to bury it at the risk that methane develops and gets released? I guess that comes down to the probability of the methane escaping.
So to be clear, are you saying cutting down pine trees and burying them is good for climate?
And they are correct. A fast growing conifer (like all trees) is made out of carbon fixed from the atmosphere. When it dies and is allowed to rot, the carbon is released back into the atmosphere. A tree is, over its life, completely carbon neutral.
Cutting a tree and putting it in an anaerobic landfill where it cannot rot, removes carbon from the atmosphere. The tree farmer plants another fast growing tree in that spot and in a few years you repeat the process.
It is a form of carbon sequestration. Albeit a very slow and haphazard one. If you want to use trees as part of a climate strategy, this is what it looks like. Grow > cut > bury.
