Christmas is considered to be the most greenhouse gas intensive holiday in North America. If you think of the 340 million North Americans all making trips to the mall, buying large quantities of gifts (many made in different countries and shipped to the purchase location) covered in plastic and styrofoam packaging, sending Christmas cards, buying Christmas trees and specialty foods, plus all the visiting by car and airplane travel, it is easy to understand why Christmas is considered to be the most unsustainable holiday of the year.
Even though it appears many North Americans are concerned about climate change, current spending trends and patterns of consumption do not yet demonstrate environmental concerns manifesting changes in consumer habits. Kalle Lasn, founder of Adbusters Magazine, gets to the heart of the societal inconsistencies and hypocrisy with ‘Driving hybrid cars and limiting industrial emissions is great‚ but they are band–aid solutions if we don’t address the core problem: we have to consume less.’
Christmas Consumption Facts
Canadians spend an estimated $30 billion dollars on Christmas as consumers spend an average of $800 per person on gifts. American spending in 2007 will be down slightly to about $850 per person spent on gifts. That makes for a grand total of an estimated $220 billion dollars Americans spent on Christmas gifts in 2007. The British Telegraph newspaper demonstrates how over-consumption is also a problem in the UK; ‘If the six billion people now living on this planet consumed at the rate that we do in the UK, we would need five planets to support us all.’ UK residents tend to spend an average of around £355 (about US$710) on Christmas gifts.
Americans generate an extra 5 million tons of waste between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.
Plastics and Packaging
Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, North Americans create hundreds of thousands of tons of waste from packaging, Styrofoam, gift-wrap and Christmas cards. A Christian Science Monitor article claimed Americans generate an extra 5 million tons of waste between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. According to the BBC News, more than 125,000 tons of plastic packaging and 4,200 tons of foil are thrown out at Christmas time in the UK. An extra 3 million tons of waste is generated during the holiday season.
There is a direct link between Christmas waste and greenhouse gases. Environment Canada reports that landfill sites generate over a quarter of the methane emissions caused by human activity in Canada, sending 1.2 million tons of this greenhouse gas into the atmosphere each year.
Wrapping Paper & Christmas Cards
Unfortunately the festive paper used so freely during the holiday season is a rapidly dwindling resource. The paper trade is considered to be a non-sustainable industry as there are insufficient wood resources to continue to supply global paper demand indefinitely—more than 50% world’s forest have been destroyed or converted to non-forest use according to The State of the Paper Industry, published by American paper watchdog group The Environmental Paper Network. Currently, less than 20% of the world’s remaining forests are believed to be intact.
The BBC News reports UK residents throw out up to one billion Christmas cards and 83 square kms of wrapping paper during the holiday season. Most of the paper consumed during the holiday season is for gift-wrapping and Christmas cards. The UK-based Recycling Consortium estimates one tree makes about 3,000 cards.
In Canada alone, Canada Post reported it will ‘take more than 575 daily flights to deliver all the 787.3 million cards, letters and parcels that enter the Canada Post system during the holiday season. 6,000 postal vehicles (that travel 77 million kilometres a year) also help to move the mail across the country each day, including 150 highway service tractor-trailers. As of early December, an extra 100 trucks will also be called upon, where needed, to move mail’. Each litre of gasoline used to transport Christmas cards and packages creates 2.5 kilograms of carbon dioxide.
Trees: Cut, Fake or Live?
To have a real tree or a fake tree is a common conundrum for individuals trying to reduce their carbon footprint. Cutting down millions of living trees each year seems counterproductive to efforts to combat climate change. Even though many of the trees cut down for Christmas are farmed trees, perhaps it is time to reconfigure the custom of cutting down trees for Christmas and start planting trees instead.
Cut Trees
Real cut trees are usually farmed using industrial methods that include heavy applications of pesticide; insecticides to combat possible pest damage and often tree farmers use fertilizers to speed growth and achieve a bright green color. Pesticide, insecticide and non-organic fertilizers all have negative ramifications on human health and the environment. Environment Canada explains ‘while a portion of the nutrients from fertilizer are taken up by the trees and the soil, some can be washed into watercourses, potentially leading to nutrient loading, which can have negative impacts on the environment.’
Finding out the origin of the cut tree is also important as too often the trees have been shipped considerable distance from a farm to a sale's lot. If you do decide to purchase a cut tree, try to find a local tree farm to reduce the greenhouse gases associated with your Christmas tree purchase.
After the holiday season is over many cut trees are discarded into landfills. Environmental organizations advocate for chipping or composting live trees rather than disposing of them in a landfill.
Fake Trees
Fake trees also raise concerns about their ‘greenness’. Many fake trees are manufactured and imported from Asia and the greenhouse gases created in shipping fake trees to a local store are part of the sustainable Christmas tree equation. Many artificial trees are made from PVC or polyethylene. PVC is a plastic made from crude oil, a non-renewable resource.
According to the American-based National Christmas Tree Association more than 10 million fake trees were sold in 2003. Although fake trees might seem like a better option due to their resusability factor, fake trees are difficult to recycle or dispose of and many ultimately end up in landfills.
Live Trees
Living Christmas trees seem to be the best solution for a green Christmas. Live trees come in a burlap root sack and can be planted after the holiday. Each tree planted helps to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. According to the American-based Tree Folks, ‘a single mature tree can absorb carbon dioxide at a rate of 48 lbs./year and release enough oxygen back into the atmosphere to support 2 human beings’.
Turkeys and Other Meats
North American meat and poultry consumption continues to climb. In Christmas 2005, Canadians consumed more than 4 million whole turkeys, equal to 42% of whole turkeys consumed over the entire year according to the Canadian Turkey Marketing Agency. Americans consume an estimated 67 million turkeys between Thanksgiving and Christmas reports People For the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
Although consuming a turkey (slaughtering, transporting, freezing and cooking) is not as carbon emission intensive as eating beef, all forms of meat and poultry still produce more greenhouse gases than an equivalent vegetarian meal. There is also the cruel treatment to consider when consuming turkeys reared in a factory farm.
Green Pages
Buy Nothing Day on November 28th was started by Adbusters Magazine and encourages people to examine their patterns of consumption. Since its humble beginnings, Buy Nothing Day has grown into a global movement: http://adbusters.org/metas/eco/bnd/
New American Dream offers great information on how to simplify the holidays: http://www.newdream.org
The Christmas Resistance Group advocates for no shopping, no presents, no guilt. They have everything the activist needs to boycott Christmas: http://www.xmasresistance.org/
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written by Anonymous Student , September 22, 2011