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Environmental educators give tips to reduce Christmas waste

Photo illustration by James Nix

By Karen Cimino Wilson | Independent Tribune

Published: December 20, 2009

Christmas cards, trees decorated with twinkling lights, packages wrapped with ribbon and red or green paper, huge meals no one can finish. Christmas stuff adds up fast into a national glut of trash that reaches about 25 to 30 percent above the normal residential refuse collected the rest of the year.

Americans buy 2.65 billion Christmas cards each — enough to fill a football field 10 stories high or circle the planet 10 times, according to National Geographic. The Environmental Protection Agency recommends sending e-cards instead of traditional cards.

If every American household reduced its holiday ribbon use by two feet, they would save 50,000 miles, or enough ribbon to circle the Earth twice, according to the Use Less Stuff Report, an online newsletter that reports on ways to use less.

Locally, the numbers have shown increases of as much as 30 percent in holiday trash, but the increase is echoed in the summertime, said Allen Scott, director of solid waste for the City of Concord.

"Allied will have to put out extra trucks to keep up with all the boxes and wrapping paper and other things that are thrown away as a part of the Christmas disposal that comes the week after Christmas and the first week of January," Scott said. "Live Christmas trees add a lot to the yard waste."

Scott said one alternative to dumping the tree curbside is to sink it.

"There are people who are fishermen who will go around on their own and pick up live Christmas trees and sink those into the ponds to try to create breeding habitats for the fish," he said

Mandy Smith-Thompson, Concord's environmental educator, said most wrapping paper is recyclable so she recommends saving it for reuse or placing it in a recycling bin for collection.

More tips from Mandy Smith-Thompson

• Start a composting pile with holiday meal table scraps.
• Buy gifts that will last or create memories such as concert tickets.
• There's no shame in re-gifting. It's a form of recycling.
• Reuse gift bags, tissue and paper from past Christmas gifts.
• Concord will pick up live Christmas trees curbside and chip them into mulch.
• Consider sinking your Christmas tree in a local pond to create a fish habitat.

• Contact reporter Karen Cimino Wilson: 704-789-9141