FAQ | Oncor Recycled Trees

Sustainability

What is the Corporate Purpose of Oncor Recycled Trees?

Our Purpose is to make Christmas eco-friendly by supplying Recycled Christmas trees to eco-friendly consumers and responsible buyers for 30 to 50 or more joyful Christmases.

Does your company define a specific Just Cause?

Our Just Cause is to build a better world in which people can embrace using Recycled materials more often, Reuse products with longer product lives, and continuously Reduce daily waste, thereby making our planet a better place.

What are the benefits of using recycled plastic in Christmas trees?
1. While most artificial Christmas trees are manufactured with virgin (newly produced) PVC or PE plastic, Oncor Christmas trees contain 100% recycled PVC plastic.
2. By using recycled plastic, Oncor both minimizes the environmental impact of our Christmas trees as well as upcycles a commonly-disposed of material at the same time.
3. In fact, virgin PVC produces 15.84 times more emissions than recycled plastic.
4. Source: University of Cambridge

What are the environmental benefits of a long Christmas tree product life?
1. A large majority of the environmental impact of Christmas tree production occurs during the manufacturing/farming of the Christmas tree and during the transportation of the tree to the consumer's home.
2. By offering Recycled Christmas tree with the longest product life, Oncor significantly reduces the overall environmental impact of Christmas tree ownership.
3. With a product life of 30 to 50 years or more, Oncor trees result in fewer Christmas trees needing to be produced or cut down and consequently less emissions-intensive car journeys being made.

Why does Oncor only manufacture traditional green Christmas trees?
1. Oncor does not produce Christmas trees in colors other than the traditional green as our decades of Christmas tree manufacturing knowledge and experiences have shown that trees in different colors, especially white, tend to have their appearance degraded much faster than those in green.
2. As a result, non-traditional green Christmas trees have much shorter product lives and are thus not very eco-friendly.

What can I do with used Christmas trees with remaining product life?
1. 1. At Oncor, we sincerely urge all our eco-friendly customers to continuously reuse Oncor Recycled Christmas trees for 30 to 50 years or more.
2. 2. As such, we would recommend that customers needing to dispose of their Oncor trees, for whatever reason before the 30 to 50 year product life is used up, to consider donating the tree to a local charity.

How is buying Christmas trees online better for the environment?
1. The greatest environmental impact of Christmas tree ownership comes from transporting purchased Christmas trees from stores or Christmas tree farms to the consumer's residence.
2. As such, purchasing a Christmas tree online is much more eco-friendly as doing so will utilize existing parcel delivery services that can transport items in a much more efficient manner.
3. Source: PE Americas

Why are pre-lit trees not eco-friendly?
1. In keeping with our purpose: "Making Christmas Eco-Friendly", we have opted to not produce pre-lit Christmas trees as most tree lights are prone to malfunction within a few years after purchase.
2. Consumers wishing to reuse pre-lit trees for many years may not have the required skills to properly take down, store, and set up these trees annually. There are many fire accidents and electric shocks caused by incorrect usage of pre-lit trees.
3. Pre-lit trees are pre-wired and strung with lights that cannot be removed from the trees, even when consumers want to change the colour of the lights or to replace some damaged lights a few years after purchase.
4. Pre-lit trees cannot be reused for 30+ years as Oncor Recycled trees can. As well, pre-lit trees may be a fire hazard to residential properties and can contain toxic heavy metal elements such as lead.
5. Pre-lit trees are not made of 100% recycled PVC plastic material because they are classified as electrical products and are subject to mandatory UL/CSA regulations. As such, pre-lit trees are not eco-friendly

Why PE Christmas trees are not eco-friendly?
1. Oncor is a values-driven enterprise. We have opted to not produce any PE Christmas tree because PE trees are made of Low Density Polyethylene (LDPE), with very high Melt Flow Index (MFI), by plunger type injection moulding machine, therefore, the tips of PE leaves cannot be injected with 100% recycled PE plastic.
2. As such, PE trees are not eco-friendly.

Why are PVC Christmas trees naturally flame retardant?
1. The Recycled PVC plastic material used in all Oncor Recycled Christmas trees does not need treating by flame retardant chemicals.
2. PVC is by nature a flame retardant plastic as defined by its limiting oxygen index score. In fact, PVC is an inherently fire resistant plastic, the only exception among the general-purpose plastics, since it contains more than 50% of chlorine.
3. When PVC products are burned, hydrogen chloride gas resulting from thermal cracking slows down the continuous combustion reaction and prevents burning progress by warding off the PVC product surface from oxygen in the air.
4. Source: PVC Forum

Are Oncor Christmas trees made from lead-free PVC plastic?
1. Yes, Oncor Christmas trees are made from tin-based recycled PVC plastic instead of lead-based PVC plastic.
2. Regular testing is conducted to ensure that our Christmas trees adhere to all applicable regulatory standards.
3. For the results of our most recent PVC plastic lab tests, please email us.

Why does Oncor mainly produce hooked trees instead of hinged trees?
1. Hooked trees are flat-packed in smaller tree boxes with individual branches.
2. This reduces packaging sizes and saves on packaging materials and freight.
3. It is also one of Oncor's eco-friendly measures to minimize our environmental footprint.
4. Additionally, hooked trees can support more decorations than similarly-sized hinged trees and are easier to shape tree branches tip by tip.
5. As such, hooked trees may look much fuller after shaping.

Do you test your trees to make sure they are complying with regulations?
1. We conduct internal scheduled testing at least 10 times each production day by using our own testing equipment: Hitachi XRF Analyzer EA1000AIII to ensure that all of our purchased materials and parts, as well as our finished products adhere to the applicable regulatory standards.
2. In addition to frequent internal testing of our trees, we also send materials, parts, and finished products to two third-party Quality Assurance labs: Intertek and SGS for laboratory testing that ensures our trees comply with both American and European standards.