The environmental Christmas hangover
18th February 201
Graham Peebles writes:
Christmas may seem like a distant memory but the environmental effect of the annual consumer frenzy, over-indulgence and
extravagance is lasting damage. And year on year the cost to the planet grows.
For the best part of a week in early January the street in which I live in London was littered with mountains of rubbish
and discarded Christmas trees, real and fake. The use of both live and artificial trees as decorative emblems of
Christmas is ecologically damaging and, like many aspects of this materialistic pantomime, needs to be consigned to a
bygone era and replaced with either a naked corner, or a rented potted tree from a garden centre, which can be returned
to the growers afterwards.
In Europe an estimated 60 million live trees are bought, decorated and dumped; it’s around 30 million in America. The
majority of real trees are grown specifically for Christmas, so forests are not being depleted but after the festivities
most real trees are thrown away and as they decompose, methane (a greenhouse gas) is produced. Artificial trees leave
their own carbon footprint due to their production and transport. Most are made in China and amass a great many
polluting air miles en route to their Western destination, and when discarded also end up in landfill sites. In order to
make up for the amount of energy used in its production, according to the Woodland Trust, a plastic tree would need to
be reused every Christmas for 20 years. Under the tree, of course, is to be found the festive Icons – the presents.
Worldwide, adults are said to spend on average $475 on gifts, half of which are unwanted, but in this throwaway world of
ours, instead of returning them, most of these rejected trinkets are dumped in the rubbish bin and end up in a landfill
site.
In the capital of consumerism, America, a colossal $10 million is spent on wrapping paper, most of which is not
recyclable, and the number of Christmas cards sold requires 300,000 trees to be cut down.
Christmas and rubbish are synonymous terms in more ways than one. It’s the time of year when the largest amount of
consumer waste is produced and the overwhelming bulk it ends up in a hole in the ground. Over 114,000 tonnes of plastic
waste is estimated to have been produced in Britain over Christmas and not recycled, together with “more than 88,000,000
square metres of wrapping paper and 300,000 tonnes of card packaging”, The Times relates. In the capital of consumerism,
America, a colossal $10 million is spent on wrapping paper, most of which is not recyclable, and the number of Christmas
cards sold requires 300,000 trees to be cut down.
Then there’s the unbridled cruelty reserved for the animals that are raised for the festive table; around 10 million
turkeys are eaten in Britain; its closer to 25 million in America, where the major turkey cull is Thanksgiving. The vast
majority of the birds that are stuffed and roasted are factory farmed. Their short lives are spent in appalling
conditions and end when they are plunged head first into electrified stunning baths, after which they have their throats
cut in the slaughterhouse. The industrial farming of turkeys is not just barbaric. Like all animal farming, it produces
huge amounts of the greenhouse gases which fuel man-made climate change. Add to this Christmas travel by road and air,
and the enormous environmental impact of Christmas begins to become clear: from 15 December to 4 January, a record 52
million people in America took to the air and 97 million hit the highways. In Britain over 13 million vehicles clogged
the roads in the days leading up to the big day, and both Heathrow and Gatwick airports had their busiest days on
record: around four million people in total, with record numbers taking long-haul flights. Aviation is a major source of
greenhouse gases, and the further one flies the greater the environmental damage.
Simplicity and sufficiency
While the festive period allows much needed time for rest, and for some, warm family gatherings (and tense misery for
others), in its current form it is little more than an exercise in mass consumerism. The “Christmas Spirit”, which
suggests peace, brotherhood and “goodwill to all men”, is widely absent, replaced by an exaggerated version of how life
is conducted the rest of the year; contemporary values (which are not values at all, of course) of greed and selfishness
are relentlessly encouraged and to a large degree, prevail.
Like much of contemporary living, it [Christmas] needs to be simplified and redefined, not necessarily in a way that
corresponds to Christian doctrine, but in a manner rooted in what we might more broadly call “spiritual”, or simply
human values: sharing, social/environmental responsibility, tolerance and kindness to one another and, crucially, to the
Earth itself.
The consumer culture, of which Christmas is the pinnacle expression, is an essential part of the neoliberal economic
system under which we live. It is maintained by insatiable desire and the false notion that happiness is to be found
within the Christmas wrapping paper, the “Black Friday” deals or Saturday shopping outings, in “success” and sensory
pleasure. However, far from creating the conditions in which contentment and joy can flower, discontent and conflict is
maintained, and an atmosphere created for anxiety and depression to grow. As it is currently constituted, Christmas
perpetuates and strengthens this materialistic and highly damaging approach to life – for humanity and the planet. Like
much of contemporary living, it needs to be simplified and redefined, not necessarily in a way that corresponds to
Christian doctrine, but in a manner rooted in what we might more broadly call “spiritual”, or simply human values:
sharing, social/environmental responsibility, tolerance and kindness to one another and, crucially, to the Earth itself.
A treeless, gift-free Christmas, where little or no travel is involved, and money usually spent on gifts is donated to
an environmental charity, would be the ideal. If you can’t face Christmas without presents, then environmental
considerations should be paramount when choosing what to give – not necessarily what to buy. If we are to overcome the
environmental catastrophe and reverse the colossal ecological damage, greed, selfishness and excess must come to an end,
replaced by simplicity and sufficiency – and a new environmental consciousness urgently cultivated, at Christmas and
throughout the year.
ends