The Unmerry Waste of Christmas
Despite most of the U.K being told to grapple with a reduced family bubble this past Christmas, the amount of waste produced post-celebrations remained at an astronomical high of 302,913 tonnes.
Christmas food shopping during Covid times must have conjured up grand delusions in the minds of many this year, with excess indulgement and plentiful portions of food and drink, being even more justified than ever. This is borne out by the truly startling numbers of Christmas waste dumped into our British bins:
4,800 tonnes of half-eaten mince pies- a national favorite and beautifully inciteful christmas must-haves (even if you can’t quite stomach them),
141,525 tonnes of food packaging-unavoidable due to the obscene addiction to food packaging by food companies,
50,544 tonnes of leftover Christmas dinners-Turkey’s are far too large to fully consume,
24,600 tonnes of glass drink bottles and 7,500 tonnes of drink cans- a cause of so-called christmess merriment coupled with covid-19 woes,
2,000 tonnes of cheese-Probably too smelly for Brits to keep in the kitchen.
In addition to the outrageous food waste which filled British bins this past Christmas, there were also all those supposed condiments to our happiness which we deem essential:
17,444 tonnes of wrapping paper, 30,000 tonnes of Christmas cards, and 12,500 tonnes of decorations with 68,488 miles of broken Christmas lights. This week should herald in the disposal of 12,000 tonnes of the most important Yuletide decoration of all, Christmas trees.
Thankfully, though still consuming much energy to do so, some of all this waste can be recycled, with trees being shredded into chippings, and cards and wrapping paper munched for paper, and all those broken fairy lights can be processed if taken to a “small electricals” skip. Organic waste can also generate much energy and used to generate methane via anaerobic digestion, but for the most part, efficiency of collection are still lacking in most parts of UK.
Commercial food waste which is collected separately will be processed in the latter. the U.K.
Surely, with all the climate change chaos we are currently witnessing, it would make common sense to reuse wrapping paper, scrap christmas cards in exchange for electronic greetings, and reuse a plastic christmas tree, year in and year out. On the latter note, have you ever looked closely at the branches of a Christmas tree to decipher all the little buds nestled in each branch, and wondered what would have become of all these little pearls of life, if that tree had not been prematurely struck down?
As covid-19 continues to rule our lives, keeping us at home, it may be an opportune time to reassess, reuse, recycle & reduce our wayward & wasteful ways.