Then we use the wood.

Wood for construction locks up the carbon for decades to centuries.

Leaves become animal fodder and from there become fertilizer.

The more we replace disposable plastic with disposable paper the fewer microplastics we add to the environment.

If wood ends up in a landfill, its carbon gets locked underground for centuries. An anoxic landfill, and it could stay down there until it turns into oil. Dump it in the ocean and it sinks down among the shipwrecks and becomes fish habitat. And the worst poison wood leaches into the environment is the stuff black walnut uses to kill other plants.

Compared to everything else we make crap out of, wood is an ecological miracle.

And if all else fails wood for heat and power is literally carbon neutral.