Holiday Waste - The Less Pretty Side of the Season

Photos

The Mound

see larger image

uploaded by LongInt57

• 

  uploaded by LongInt57 | add comment

• 

  uploaded by beemyne05 | add comment

Everyone can exhale now, we've almost made it through yet another holiday season. While I like to deck the halls as much as the next girl, Christmas has come to signify an ideology that has largely marked our century: blatant consumerism. The aftermath of this, of course, is waste.

When one actually starts glazing some of the figures, the numbers are quite staggering and all that innocent gift-wrapping can start to seem a trifle malicious. Gift-wrapping? Malicious? Well, dear reader, read on.

According to the EPA, household waste generated in the U.S. increases by 1 million tons, from 4 million to 5 million, between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day - a whopping 25 per cent increase. Canada's contribution of 300,000 tons during the same time period isn't much prettier.

Some Holiday Waste Reduction facts from the Regional District of Nanaimo put things in a Canadian perspective:

• Annual waste from gift-wrap and shopping bags equals around 545,000 tons
• If each household cut waste by 1 kg., 34,000 tons of garbage would be eliminated
• By wrapping three gifts in reused paper or gift bags, enough paper would be saved to cover 45,000 hockey rinks

It's clear that just taking a moment to make rational buying decisions during the holiday frenzy can have a big payoff as well as being conscious of your own personal habits. After all, we want to feel warm and fuzzy, not trashy!