Are Christmas decorations harming our planet?
Examples of holiday over consumption from tiktok (The Puma Prensa / Bella Guerrero)
By Bella Guerrero, Staff Writer
Everyone knows that the holidays are one of the busiest times of the year; with trick or treating, Thanksgiving dinner, Christmas time, and New Year’s, everyone is scrambling to keep up with it all. Many families slave away to make elaborate dinners and spend copious amounts of money on Christmas presents. Consumer culture and the feeling as if it’s never enough keep individuals buying, buying, and buying. But how does all of this spending and consumption affect our planet?
From the start of Thanksgiving day, all the way through New Year’s, Americans on average contribute about 25% more trash than during the rest of the year. About half of Americans' total yearly paper waste comes from discarding wrapping paper and Christmas decorations; this equates to about nine billion tons of wasted paper. This mass amount of debris leads to millions of tons of garbage being sent to landfills, polluting the earth until it can be processed properly. In order to get rid of trash, landfills will compact the waste and bury it in soil, utilizing systems that manage the liquid and gases. Depending on the material, this waste could take anywhere from a couple of weeks to hundreds of years to decompose. The most concerning issue with this already destructive process is that we produce more trash faster than we can clean up the trash we already have.
The leading cause of this extensive amount of waste is society’s ever increasing craving for more and more unnecessary junk, as well as the urge to keep up with everything that’s trending. Every year, there is a new trend for Christmas decorations, and this year it’s “Ralph Lauren Christmas,” which gained its popularity through social media platforms like TikTok and Instagram. Ralph Lauren Christmas is a take on the traditional green and red Christmas, but rebranded and labeled as “something new” in order to get people to spend their money on more Christmas decorations that they don’t need, which they will inevitably get tired of next year when another trend rolls around.
Influencers, content creators, and wealthy individuals are typically the people who contribute most to this overconsumption of unnecessary Christmas decorations. They will go to stores like Michaels, Costco, and Target to spend thousands of dollars on decorations they only use for one or two months out of the year. Mindlessly consuming, their old decorations will either be thrown away and end up in landfills with the rest of the holiday garbage, or donated to thrift stores where they will likely rot on the shelves, untouched because they’re not “trendy” anymore. This unnecessary spending often stems from the need for increased social status; the more money you spend, the more you’re seen as wealthy and high status.
When we take Halloween candy, Thanksgiving and Christmas dinners, and New Year’s Eve parties, under consideration, the average American is surrounded by so much food. While it’s great to have plenty of food for your family and friends, it also makes it increasingly easier to over consume food when you are surrounded by it, or put too much on your plate that will get thrown away. Nearly every American citizen wastes about one hundred pounds of food during the holidays. The leftover food on their plate that they can’t finish will be thrown away and wasted, while 673 million people are still experiencing world hunger, and about two million children are dying from it each year.
The things we don’t even notice are harmful to the environment are what we need to be most aware of, and if we want to save our planet, we need to implement and practice better traditions for future generations. Instead of using wrapping paper, try putting gifts in reusable party bags that you can keep and use for Christmases in the future. Instead of piling more food onto your plate than you can finish, try starting with a small serving and go back for seconds– and there’s always leftovers the next day too. Finally, instead of buying new Christmas decorations every year, reuse the decor you already have or try making your own decor with your family and friends.
This planet is the only one we’ve got, and if we keep up these bad habits, our environment's destruction will only intensify, and life will get increasingly difficult for all of us. If we practice better habits during the holiday season, we can help our planet and produce less waste.