The late fall and early winter holidays are known for many wonderful things, like warm food, sparkling decorations, and gifts wrapped in shiny paper. But if you peel back the ribbon and tinsel, the truth is plain to see: landfills overflow with wrapping paper and plastic trees; Grandma’s leftover turkey rots in the dumpster; jets leech CO2 into the air to deliver millions of gifts. This is the impact of the holiday season.
According to Stanford University’s Waste Reduction, Recycling, Composting and Solid Waste Program, Americans produce 25% more waste between Thanksgiving and New Years than during the rest of the year. That’s 1,000,000 extra tons of waste each week.
A large amount of the waste generated during the holidays comes from the bounty of Santa Claus himself — gifts.
“Let’s say I get a pair of pants. My grandma would take the pants out of their packaging, fold them, and put them into a box. Then she wraps the box and puts a bow or a ribbon and stickers on it,” junior Corbin Honey said.
The Clean Air Partnership, a nonprofit environmental organization, reports that approximately eight thousand tons of wrapping paper is used to wrap gifts each year. That’s equivalent to about fifty thousand trees. And most of that paper is going straight into the trash after people unwrap their gifts.
But wrapping paper isn’t the only thing ending up in trash cans – don’t think the Thanksgiving turkey is off the hook. Food waste is another major factor in the environmental waste produced during the holidays.
“It’s really easy to get caught up in buying too much stuff and wasting food during the holidays,” senior Greggory Shine said. “After the Christmas feast, people are always throwing out food. I always see maggots after Christmas break because there’s just so much food in the trash cans.”
It isn’t just buying too much that’s causing problems. The types of food being consumed during the holidays also affects the environment.
“Often our holiday meals are not vegetable rich. They’re very meat heavy, and eating meat can really contribute to your carbon footprint because every time we move up a trophic level, we lose 90% of the energy, and only 10% of it is able to move from one level to the next,” biology teacher Dr. Erin Stephens said. “So if I’m eating at the very bottom of an ecosystem, then that is far more efficient than eating an animal and having that energy transfer take place.”
The overconsumption issues around the holidays have also gotten worse over time. Money spent during the holidays has more than doubled in the U.S. over the past 20 years.
“Kids generally get more for Christmas than I remember from when I was a kid, and it seems like the rate of consumption is accelerating and the amount of money spent has gone up,” Stephens said.
Some people, like Stephens, believe the excess of holiday waste to be a result of American gift-giving culture.
“We are compelled as a culture to give people gifts, and that’s nice, but when we buy plastic junk that nobody really wants, it takes a lot of fossil fuel to make those plastics, and it’s really not good for the environment,” Stephens said.
Liberty community member Melinda Wilson agrees that America has become known for excess waste.
“When I was in Haiti, I met these two women from Kenya, and one of the things they said is ‘You Americans are so wasteful. You throw away plastic bags, and we flatten them out and reuse them until they fall apart,” Wilson said.
Green Team Vice President and junior Megan Smith cites the rise of social media as a contributor to the dramatic incline in holiday consumerism.
“I think influencers make this unrealistic standard of buying a lot of things, spending a lot of money, and having a lot of things. That’s just not obtainable, and it’s not healthy for you or the environment,” Smith said.
Green Team president and senior Jenna Rowland agrees.
“On TikTok and other new social media platforms, advertisements are even more common. Almost every time you go online nowadays, advertisements are the first thing you see. And of course, it’s influencing people to buy more,” Rowland said.
But why are people throwing so much away? Honey and many others believe this to be the result of cheap and rapid manufacturing techniques, like those used by Temu and Shein.
“If I make $15/hour at my job, and I have to pay for rent and clothes, of course I am going to buy cheap stuff. And I would have to buy a lot of it because it’s cheap and it’ll break down,” Honey said. “Manufacturers are purposefully making bad quality items so we have to buy more.”
So what is there to be done then? Many people feel overwhelmed and helpless from the state of overconsumption, but others have found ways to implement more environmentally conscious practices into their holiday cheer.
“If at all possible, we should make people things that people appreciate and don’t end up in landfill,” Stephens said. “So just try to think small and thoughtful, and maybe give experiences, because a lot of times those are the most meaningful things too.”
Rowland seconds the idea that people can be more conscious about what gifts they give in order to reduce their environmental impact.
“Aesthetics are something that everybody is going after right now because we want to appear beautiful and cool,” Rowland said. “I think finding peace in who you are and not constantly chasing after an aesthetic can help your own mental well being, and it can also help reduce waste because you’re not constantly buying new things.”
Shopping locally and thrifting for gifts is another more sustainable way to get gifts because less CO2 is released into the atmosphere when items don’t need to be shipped long distances.
Some avoid waste almost entirely by gifting experiences instead of physical items.
“You can make cookies or hang out in the park, or you make a little picnic and go to a beach,” Stephens said. “A lot of times those are the most meaningful things, too.”
Other than simply consuming less, people like Stephens are working to reduce their environmental footprint by reusing and repurposing materials.
“At my house, you might unwrap something and find that it’s in a cereal box because Santa’s reusing a cereal box,” Stephens said. “You can reuse paper that you have around and stamp it or draw on it, and that’s going to be far more recyclable and sustainable than using wrapping paper.”
Shine even has a closet in his house dedicated to storing packaging to reuse later.
Similarly, Wilson applies the idea of using reusable materials to her decor.
“I don’t like to use paper napkins so I’ve been using fabric linen napkins instead. It makes me feel good about keeping a lot of disposable napkins out of the landfill,” Wilson said.
For many, overconsumption puts a damper on holiday spirit. But we are not helpless in this environmental crisis; there are ways to preserve the joy of the holidays without destroying the planet in the process. It is possible to make progress, but first we must make change.
