Christmas Waste

My book club had a clothes swap last night. Great fun & a really good way to recycle unloved clothes, especially when it's the Christmas season & we all need a nice outfit for Christmas day. Fast fashion comes into it's own at this time of year. I know people who buy a new outfit for Christmas every year. Often the clothes will only be worn a handful of times. Nothing I will be wearing is less than a few years old & some items have been in my wardrobe over a decade. I love them & I'm comfortable wearing them.

Christmas must be the worst period for food waste. Sprouts & Christmas pudding are probably the most "marmite" foods we eat at Christmas. I love both, but lots of people don't & a great deal ends up in the green food waste bin. I tried making sprout soup one year, but it wasn't a success. How many people actually use all the left over bits of turkey to make a fricassee for example? Even less people I imagine use the turkey bones to make a wonderful soup. The art of cooking from scratch & not wasting good food has been replaced by the big 5 supermarkets Christmas food.

Then there are the Christmas cards. I stopped sending them years ago & send email greetings & give the money saved on the cards & stamps to charity. I see little point in sending cards to people I can actually wish Happy Christmas to in person. The waste of paper, whatever the source including trees, or even if it's recycled paper, really isn't acceptable to me. My time is valuable, so I send the cards electronically in batches to different groups. Writing individual cards by hand just isn't a good use of my time. If I get cards I do cut up appropriate ones to make gift tags, but I still think it's a waste of finite resources.

Wrapping paper is even worse. I am rubbish at wrapping gifts & doing it causes me repetetive strain pain. I try to take wrapping paper off carefully to re use it, but actually it rarely works. When you see the over loaded recycling bins after Christmas it gives you a small idea of how much waste there is.

The decorations & Christmas tree take quite a lot of effort & money. Goodness knows how many real trees are chopped down every year & growing them must take up land that could be used for food production or re-foresting with deciduous trees. It has become fashionable to change your christmas tree decorations on a regular basis according to the current fashion. I'm pleased to say that my daughter has all my tree decorations & some were her grandmothers. I gave her my artificial tree too. The sales, often starting before Christmas are full of reduced christmas decorations , wreaths & lights. 

Finally, the presents. Many will end up in landfill, charity shops or the "present drawer". I have come to the conclusion that really presents are only appropriate for children. I'm not a scrooge or a grump, but the time spent trying to think of & find presents people will actually want or need is often wasted. I do really enjoy seeing someone open a present that it's obvious they are delighted with, but that isn't easy to achieve. Much of the time people feign pleasure & to be honest what is wonderful about socks, ties, jumpers, nightwear or slippers. Surely we all buy those for ourselves?

https://www.asustainablelife.co.uk/12-not-so-fun-festive-facts/

It's a mad repetetive cycle. We consume & consume & in doing so waste so much. It's completely unsustainable. What are we thinking?

Obviously we aren't!