Artificial Christmas tree

[2] These first trees were wooden, tree-shaped pyramids lit by candles, they were developed in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, by the German Moravian Church in 1747.

[4] In 1930 a British-based Addis Housewares Company created the first artificial Christmas tree made from brush bristles.

[12] The prelit tree has become increasingly popular in the United States and Germany as well, due to added ease of not having to string one's own lights.

[15] Artificial Christmas trees may be "frosted" or "glittered" and designed for outdoor uses with UV additives.

[17] David Gutshall, of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, received a patent for the latter type of fiber optic tree in 1998.

[citation needed] Upside-down artificial Christmas trees were originally introduced as a marketing gimmick; they allowed consumers to get closer to ornaments for sale in retail stores as well as opened up floor space for more products.

[26] All of this mixed with our convenience culture that enjoys the ease of new technologies, the artificial Christmas tree has blossomed into the holiday staple that it is today.

[28] The real versus artificial tree debate has been popular in mass media through the early 21st century.

[12] A 1975 poll by Michigan State University showed the reasons why consumers were beginning to prefer artificial over natural Christmas trees.

[30] Between January and September 2011, over 79.7 million dollars worth of artificial Christmas trees were exported to the United States.

The number of artificial Christmas trees imported to United States rose 139 million in the same nine-month period in 2012.

An estimated 20 percent of all Christmas trees sold in Poland are artificial, and many are made domestically by individual families.

Entire families take part in production and the trees are sold throughout Poland with some being exported to the Czech Republic and Slovakia.

[33] One researcher at Kansas State University called the idea that artificial trees are eco-friendly an "urban myth".

[citation needed] Most PVC materials for making artificial Christmas trees are now using tin as a stabilizer.

Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) asked the Consumer Products Safety Commission to investigate lead levels in Chinese imported artificial trees.

[35] A 2008 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report found that as the PVC in artificial Christmas trees aged it began to degrade.