![Old Christmas trees help to rebuild storm-damaged beaches:
Thousands of Christmas trees, stripped of lights and ornaments, have been arranged along the beach here [Long Beach, New York] as part of an unusual plan to restore the protective dunes washed away by Hurricane Sandy. The trees are supposed to catch sand blown by the wind, until gradually the dunes grow up around them.
Long Beach, one of the localities in the New York region most devastated by the storm, is a thin ribbon of land between Long Island and the Atlantic Ocean. The storm washed away about half a million cubic yards of sand, officials said, leaving residents dangerously exposed to even modestly inclement weather.
…
From a distance, the trees resemble a somewhat bizarre gathering on the beach, like a large pod of exceptionally fuzzy seals. There are about 3,000 in all. The local Home Depot donated some. Others stood in the living rooms of residents until recently, adorned with decorations.
Other localities in New York and New Jersey are also using Christmas trees to buttress beaches damaged by Hurricane Sandy. Healthy sand dunes are the first line of defense for coastal towns during storms because they keep the ocean from invading backyards and basements. But sand alone is not enough. An anchor, often naturally growing grasses, is needed to prevent the sand from blowing or washing away.
But the grasses cannot grow without a significant accumulation of sand, and in Long Beach these days there simply is not enough. That is where the Christmas trees come in.
…
The method is not uncommon, particularly in areas like the Carolinas and Florida that are prone to hurricanes. It can take two to three years for dunes to become fully re-established after a major storm.
The afterlives of Christmas trees can be quite dynamic. In southern Louisiana, the trees are woven into fences and used to block dangerous levels of saltwater from flowing into coastal wetlands. They have been used in Illinois to create nesting structures for herons and egrets forced from natural habitats by development. [In California, trees have played a role in the building of lake habitats.]
In Long Beach, several residents proposed placing the trees in the dunes. City officials approved the plan, and about 100 volunteers gathered on the beach the other day to arrange the trees with their tops facing toward the surf. The configuration, officials hope, will catch sand blowing from all directions.
(via On Decimated Shore, a Second Life for Christmas Trees - NYTimes.com)
[Special note from proud Texan Molly: Something similar’s been done on Texas beaches.]](http://24.media.tumblr.com/c210621665dd6d1a9c04a6e5588d6daa/tumblr_mhrbspmHiY1qzv12bo1_400.jpg)
Old Christmas trees help to rebuild storm-damaged beaches:
Thousands of Christmas trees, stripped of lights and ornaments, have been arranged along the beach here [Long Beach, New York] as part of an unusual plan to restore the protective dunes washed away by Hurricane Sandy. The trees are supposed to catch sand blown by the wind, until gradually the dunes grow up around them.
Long Beach, one of the localities in the New York region most devastated by the storm, is a thin ribbon of land between Long Island and the Atlantic Ocean. The storm washed away about half a million cubic yards of sand, officials said, leaving residents dangerously exposed to even modestly inclement weather.
…
From a distance, the trees resemble a somewhat bizarre gathering on the beach, like a large pod of exceptionally fuzzy seals. There are about 3,000 in all. The local Home Depot donated some. Others stood in the living rooms of residents until recently, adorned with decorations.
Other localities in New York and New Jersey are also using Christmas trees to buttress beaches damaged by Hurricane Sandy. Healthy sand dunes are the first line of defense for coastal towns during storms because they keep the ocean from invading backyards and basements. But sand alone is not enough. An anchor, often naturally growing grasses, is needed to prevent the sand from blowing or washing away.
But the grasses cannot grow without a significant accumulation of sand, and in Long Beach these days there simply is not enough. That is where the Christmas trees come in.
…
The method is not uncommon, particularly in areas like the Carolinas and Florida that are prone to hurricanes. It can take two to three years for dunes to become fully re-established after a major storm.
The afterlives of Christmas trees can be quite dynamic. In southern Louisiana, the trees are woven into fences and used to block dangerous levels of saltwater from flowing into coastal wetlands. They have been used in Illinois to create nesting structures for herons and egrets forced from natural habitats by development. [In California, trees have played a role in the building of lake habitats.]
In Long Beach, several residents proposed placing the trees in the dunes. City officials approved the plan, and about 100 volunteers gathered on the beach the other day to arrange the trees with their tops facing toward the surf. The configuration, officials hope, will catch sand blowing from all directions.
(via On Decimated Shore, a Second Life for Christmas Trees - NYTimes.com)
[Special note from proud Texan Molly: Something similar’s been done on Texas beaches.]
Christmas Tree Table, by Fabien Cappello
Brent Dzekciorius on Christmas Tree Table “Underscoring his wider interest in mapping design via local resource and manufacturing methods, Cappello’s Christmas Tree Project exploits a discarded material, expanding Christmas trees’ seemingly finite economy by upcycling them into elegantly joined, rough-hewn furnishings in a project that could have a profound impact on maintaining and even expanding regional craft traditions.”
Michael Marriott on Christmas Tree Table “This is a project built around the observation of the annual January dumping of Christmas trees on the streets of London. The resourcefulness that brought this rich source to surface as furniture-making material is also apparent in the construction and feel of the finished pieces. The ‘M&W’ joints between the different stumps provide an odd and interesting way of connecting the slices of different trunks, both structurally and aesthetically.”
(via RAW CRAFT)
Back in 2010, we mentioned Cappello’s work on these lines, here.
Repurposing for the holidays
Why not turn egg cartons into a tree? Or make ornaments out of them?
For additional reuse ideas and inspiration, check out the gallery of trees made from repurposed materials here, and other items — ornaments, garland, wreaths, and more — here.
(photo: Colégio Bernardette Romeira)
More books = more Christmas trees
Okay, so I keep thinking that I won’t post other holiday-related items. And then I come across things that we haven’t shared here on Unconsumption, and I feel compelled to post them!
So, here we go: Four additional examples of trees made from books.
(“Tree” pictured above via Goose Hill. Thanks to Annie for pointing it out to me.)
(via The Blog on the Bookshelf)
If you aren’t too worried about your books’ bindings/spines, you could make something like this:
(via Aga Inés on Flickr)
(via Real Simple)
For other book tree examples, check out these earlier Unconsumption posts. Tabletop trees? Look here. Alternative Christmas trees, in general, and other holiday tree-related posts: here.
From The Wall Street Journal: Getting a fresh, locally grown Christmas tree is better for the planet than getting an artificial tree.
Full story: A Cut Above Fake Fir - WSJ.com
Wondering what will happen to the Rockefeller Center Christmas tree after the holidays?
This year’s tree — a 74-foot-tall Norway spruce — will be milled into lumber and used to help build an affordable Habitat for Humanity home in the mid-Hudson Valley, near the community where the tree grew. Trees from the past three years also have been donated to Habitat for home-building purposes.
(Via Habitat for Humanity — PRNewswire. Photo credit: Habitat for Humanity International/Steffan Hacker.)
Related: New York Times story about the “Rockefeller Center scouts’” tree-acquisition process and the families who’ve donated their decades-old trees to them.
See also this previous Unconsumption post about Fabien Cappello’s crafting of stools from the trunks of Londoners’ cut Christmas trees.
Here’s “a Christmas tree made out of recycled office water containers,” part of a great roundup at Olympia Dumpster Divers » Blog Archive » Merry Trashmas 2010.
![Season’s seating!
One way to repurpose Christmas trees is to put them through wood-chipping or -shredding machines and convert them into mulch. Friend of Unconsumption Deirdre Nelson points us to this functional alternative (featured in Design Week):
The Christmas Tree Project — a continuation of [designer Fabien] Cappello’s graduation work from the Design Products MA at the Royal College of Art in 2009 — will see Christmas trees from across the greater London area [where an estimated 976,000 trees will simply be thrown away] being reincarnated into stools, with their trunks and branches reinvented as the seats and legs.
A portion of the project’s earnings will be donated to the UK tree conservation charity Woodland Trust.](http://24.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_lc91rsWe8D1qzv12bo1_r2_400.jpg)
Season’s seating!
One way to repurpose Christmas trees is to put them through wood-chipping or -shredding machines and convert them into mulch. Friend of Unconsumption Deirdre Nelson points us to this functional alternative (featured in Design Week):
The Christmas Tree Project — a continuation of [designer Fabien] Cappello’s graduation work from the Design Products MA at the Royal College of Art in 2009 — will see Christmas trees from across the greater London area [where an estimated 976,000 trees will simply be thrown away] being reincarnated into stools, with their trunks and branches reinvented as the seats and legs.
A portion of the project’s earnings will be donated to the UK tree conservation charity Woodland Trust.
