By: Alex Pavljuk
As the holidays rapidly approach it is important to keep in mind more than just what gifts we will be receiving this year. Each holiday season the largest overlooked environmental issue takes place, that being the dinners each family partakes in each holiday season. During the month of December, 150 million miles of carbon are let out into the environment thanks to the excessive eating habits that occur during this time of the year. Thanks to the slaughter of livestock to feed the needs of families in this season, each family purchases the food equivalent of traveling the world in a car 6,000 times, according to Business Leader.
Food alone is not even the most compelling issue to wrap up this season. In gift wrapping alone, 125,000 tons of plastic will be improperly recycled and end up in our oceans. Additionally, most of the plastic used is not biodegradable in the first place. By March of the next year, roughly 41% of holiday gifts will be broken or thrown away, resulting in not only more waste being discarded, but a waste of carbon and materials used to create these gifts.
In speaking with Mrs. Baumiller, a science and specialized education teacher at New Egypt High School, she had a few tips on how to save waste and money this holiday season: “The biggest way to reduce and reuse this holiday season is to find creative and new ways to wrap your gifts, with maybe recyclable paper or newspapers and omitting bows from the wrapping process” she also added, “a lot of stores now give out paper bags instead of plastic so reusing those for gifts would be a valuable way to save money and resources, and while you are at it, don’t be afraid to go shopping this season with a reusable bag”.
For a simple and local option, Wawa offers $0.99 reusable bags which would help cut back on plastic waste at the two locations in New Egypt.
In New Jersey alone there are 261 Starbucks locations, each average about 500 patrons a day resulting in 130,500 people in total to walk out of Starbucks with a drink. Starbucks offers reusable cups for $1.00 for hot drinks and $3.00 for a cold beverage. If one person alone who drinks at Starbucks each day used a reusable cup that would save $0.10 each drink resulting in around $70.00 of saved cash per year. This is in addition to the 1,825 plastic cups that would be saved from being improperly recycled over five years.
It is important to be aware of how you might unknowingly make an impact on our planet. We live in a strange world where we seem to be waging a war on nature by denying the very present issue.
Sources: https://www.businessleader.co.uk/the-dark-environmental-impacts-of-our-christmas-season/57161/
https://spoonuniversity.com/lifestyle/the-number-of-starbucks-in-every-state
https://www.starbucks.com/responsibility/environment/cups-and-materials