MOTHER EARTH NEWS

Have a Happy Waste-Free Holiday

Thanksgiving, Friendsgiving, Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Year’s Eve, or any combination thereof, are times of wonderful celebration, but also times of rampant waste. In fact, holiday waste statistics are shocking.

Statistics for a normal American environmental footprint are grim enough. The average U.S. resident produces nearly 5 pounds of trash per day (compared with the global average of 1.6 pounds per day). The majority consists of paper (23%), food (22%), and plastics (12%), while the remainder (43%) is distributed among textiles, wood, metals, glass, and more.

The holidays amplify the problem. Household waste can increase by more than 25% from Thanksgiving to New Year’s Day, which amounts to a million extra tons of trash each week. Much of this waste springs from wrapping paper, bows, ribbons, shopping bags, packaging, and food. Surely we can do better.

Zero-Waste Tactics

Moving toward a year-round zerowaste lifestyle requires at least the following two tactics:

1 Giving up disposable products and embracing reusable or washable alternatives. This step alone is likely to cut your

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