Trent Preszler

So like,

sardine cans and things like that.

That was the beginning of the tradition.

Ever since the 1930s, there's been a tree at Rockefeller Center every year.

It's become the iconic Christmas tree, at least for the United States, if not for the entire world.

There's one man at the heart of that entire operation.

His name is Eric Poutsy.

He is the head gardener for Rockefeller Center.

His job every year is to drive his old beat-up pickup truck around the Northeast looking and hunting for the most perfect specimen for the Rockefeller Center tree.

Typically, almost every year, it's a Norway spruce, somewhere around 70 to 80 feet tall.

And in many cases recently, especially, they've come from upstate New York.

And then he'll just knock on people's doors and literally knock, knock, hello, I'm the guy from Rockefeller Center.

Can I cut down the giant tree in your front yard?

People argue that the main benefit of the artificial trees, of course, is that they're not disposable necessarily.

You can reuse them for many years.

They don't have the needle drop and the mess in your living room that real trees do.

But a lot of research shows now that actually people still do throw away their artificial Christmas trees.

They just wait usually around 10 years to do it.

After 10 years, maybe you get sick of it, it's got dust, the branches are bent.

It's kind of not true that artificial trees are forever.