I admit, I gave into the Christmas spirit (or rather trends, media and advertising). As a result, the surrounding Santa Clauses, Christmas trees and Christmas songs (not to be mistaken with carols) are becoming more and more enjoyable. I scold myself, because I still oppose to the commercialization of Christmas. Nevertheless, I caught myself walking around, enjoying the Christmas atmosphere.
So there I was, walking around shops and after 2 months of purposely ignoring this extremely festive, devoted exclusively to Christmas store, I decided to take a step in.
Whilst looking around, at all the xmas tinsels, stacks of Christmas cards, lights, Santa’s costumes, pillows, gift bags and more, a sad but irrefutable thought popped up in my head;
roughly 60% of materials offered in this store, will be thrown in the bin almost immediately after purchase.
Eventually I’ve reached a conclusion, that this store is making revenue by selling people trash. What would you name something that you instantly throw in the bin? Trash, right?
If almost all of these products are designed to have a short-term, temporary life span, don’t you think they should be as environmentally friendly as possible? It’s not that simple unfortunately.
- Each little gewgaw is packed in plastic.
- Christmas cards with even the tiniest amount of glitter are not recyclable
- Speaking of glitter – it’s everywhere! Making even relatively more eco friendly products, loose their eco value
- Christmas lights are produced in a way that makes them break after a few uses causing them to end up in the world of electro garbage.
- Christmas tinsels. It’s hard to say whether they’re made of paper? Rubber? Plastic? Definitely not eco materials.
- Baubles on plastic stands and all packed in a plastic box. Understandably, such delicate items have to be protected but come ooon, can we be sensible?
Gifts are falling, all around me
Gifts in the UK are bought in masses. I never fully understood the idea of literally showering, not only children – but everyone – with gifts.
If you give a child 20 toys, do you think he or she will play with every single one of them, and appreciate at least one?
But this post is not about the way children should be brought up.
Or maybe it is? Maybe it would be nice to teach people from an early age, that we should reduce?
What will a child who receives more rubbish than Christmas gifts alone think of the environment?
What do you mean? You say…
If look closely into all your presents, you’ll see that the stack of packaging and wrapping takes up a lot more space than the actual items from within the presents – the items you care about the most.
Not to mention all the fancy wrapping, boxes, gift bags, gift paper, bows, ribbons or stickers. They all quickly land in the trash bin.
Recycling is one thing. The second, equally important, is the limitation of purchase.
Not only do we waste money by allowing stores to treat us like fools, we also harm the environment.
As we harm the environment, we harm ourselves and animals.
I appeal for reasonableness and restraint.
PS: In the end, I did not buy anything and left. My conscience is a lot lighter when I do not pay for garbage.
Photo Credit: Elvert Barnes, Post Consumer Recycled Plastic Christmas Peace Tree at STOP THE MACHINE! |Flickr
