Getting a Lump of Coal for Christmas

Christmas Day is an odd time for the vast majority of the world. Nearly everything grinds to a halt and Western Civilisation for the first time in a year wakes up at 5am. Relatively few cars are on the roads and even fewer shops are open. The trees have no leaves on them and there are no animals to be seen. The world is dead, which is somewhat ironic for a day celebrating the birth of Jesus.

So is Christmas Day sustainable? I believe it to be. However, I have my doubts concerning the months leading up to it. Christmas is celebrated by approximately 2.1billion Christians globally and countless more non-Christians. From personal experience, there is not a great deal of activity on Christmas day apart from the opening of presents and the cooking of Christmas dinner. A large percentage of the world ceases to work on Christmas day and so a large percentage of transport ceases to pollute. Of course there are still millions of people in the UK alone who work on Christmas day, be it because the day has no significance to them or because work has forced them to do so. So on Christmas day, pollution is reduced to amounts that should be ideal if replicated throughout the year. However, there are some drawbacks to the reduced transportation on Christmas day, often due to disruption. The UK for example, has no national rail service on Christmas Day. Yet a lot of people, namely those in the emergency services and those who do not celebrate Christmas, still require transport systems as 25% of British households do not own a car. The below article tells of how the emergency services often have to treat Christmas as any other day and provides an idea of how not everyone is lucky enough to have the day off:
http://www.uniondemocrat.com/2009122498720/News/Local-News/Many-still-work-on-Christmas-Day

The NHS claims that more than 80,000 people require hospital treatment at Christmas. You are 50% more likely to perish in a house fire at Christmas than any other time and the kitchen suddenly becomes the most dangerous place on Earth. So not only are these doctors and nurses tending to your injury sustained by using scissors as a screwdriver or eating mistletoe when they could be at home, you’re costing the government money for use of a free health service

http://www.nhs.uk/Livewell/Healthychristmas/Pages/Christmasinjuries.aspx

The Christmas period encompasses much more than just the day though. The lead up to Christmas is one that produces much waste. In America, Christmas creates approximately $435billion of economic activity. In 2004 the UK spent £15.1billion ($24.4billion) on Christmas in total and to think of the number of presents that get thrown away with relatively little use is quite astonishing (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4462502.stm)

The below link outlines some of the Christmas spending that took place in Australia as of 2004:
http://environment.about.com/od/greenchristmas/a/christmascost.htm

As is common knowledge, the production of goods often results in the deterioration of the environment as resources are utilised (often inefficiently) but it is quite thought provoking to consider that just £16 pounds of chocolate contributes 16 kilograms of Greenhouse Gases to the environment. The UK’s GDP is roughly twice as much as Australia’s and our population approximately 3 times, so it would seem reasonable to assume that we spend much more than them. Continuing the idea of excessive waste at Christmas, Envirowise (an English based advisory company for waste management) started a scheme to reduce the number of trees cut down for use in Christmas cards:
http://www.envirowise.gov.uk/uk/-Spare-a-tree-this-christmas.html

In my opinion, cards are a waste of resources the moment they are created. Not intending to come off as one who hates cards but my opinion is as follows. Cards, especially in this decade, hold little value and convey even less. Apart from discovering who sent a certain present and some minor decoration for a limited timeframe, Christmas cards have no real purpose. Therefore, I personally believe that the electronic card scheme that Envirowise have utilised is the way forward in reducing card waste as last year 23,500 e-cards were sent, so that’s 23,500 fewer actual cards.

It is not just cards that are wasted though. Food and heating both find themselves in excess each year. £275million or 230,000 tonnes of food is thrown away over the festive season and is stored in landfill where it creates methane gas (a greenhouse gas). So overall, food waste is not very good for either the economy or the environment. Heat loss leads to increased bills for home owners and inefficient use of natural resources used for heating so similarly, not very good.

The Christmas tree is one of the most iconic images of any religious festival. There are very few in the Western World that could not link an image of the Christmas tree to Christmas. The Christmas tree is, at least to me, the image of Christmas but is it sustainable? Today, artificial and real fir trees are bought to celebrate Christmas. Both have their advantages and disadvantage towards your wallet and the environment. Would you rather pay money for one artificial tree that lasts multiple years or pay more money each year for a real one? The below article explains the different effects of each type:

http://www.scientificblogging.com/science_motherhood/great_debate_real_vs_artificial_christmas_trees

It seems to me that Christmas is just one of those times where a large proportion of the world is unconcerned with the waste produced or the new levels of excess reached each year so it would seem relatively futile to throw up a fuss about it. However there are those who still care about the environment and are willing to sacrifice just a little each year so the world can rotate just a bit longer. However I cannot claim I am one of those people as I much prefer to go all out and have a bigger and better Christmas each year, just like most people, which is very selfish considering we are in the season of giving not taking.