By KANISA GEORGE
“It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, shoppers everywhere. With presents in their hands and joy throughout the land, while soca parang plays in every store. It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas, refuse here and there. We got wrappers from our food and plastics bottles too and batteries we just simply toss away.”
Almost every purchase, online order and grand Christmas lunch results in waste production. Every year an excessive number of cardboard boxes, plastic bags, wrappers and glass bottles, end up in our landfill during the Christmas period. And those items that missed garbage collection altogether stand in solitude with the natural environment at the side of the road.
During the Christmas period, there is a sharp increase in illegal dumping and littering, and even when this doesn’t occur, hundreds of recyclable items lie in the landfills. The findings of one study suggest that the global waste levels increase by 25-30 per cent during Christmas time, with much of the excess waste being made up from packaging, wrapping paper, cards, plastic material and food waste. In 2019, 227,000 miles of Christmas wrapping paper was thrown away in the UK. A study conducted by Greenpeace found that as little as one kilogramme of wrapping paper emits three and a half kilogrammes of CO2 during its production process, taking around one and a half kilogrammes of coal to power its production.
What is Christmas without ham, pastels and cake?
We plan in anticipation of the big day all season long, from grocery shopping to dinner prep, yet food wastage is significantly high during the Christmas season. Not only do we buy items we don’t need, but we also prepare meals that end up in the garbage. One study found that between 30-40 per cent of the food prepared during the Christmas season will not be eaten. We are so tantalised by the glossy packaging of items on the shelves that we don’t appreciate that greenhouse gas emissions are generated from growing, transporting, processing, and storing food before purchase. When food is thrown away, the environmental impact is significant.
Discarded food harms the natural environment and shockingly contributes to global warming. When wasted and rotting food ends up in landfills, it produces methane gas, a greenhouse gas that contributes to global warming. With this in mind, it is important to manage to refuse during the Christmas season.
For starters, don’t litter and refrain from illegal dumping. It might seem easy to simply toss unwanted items here, there and everywhere without recourse for the natural environment, but the effects are far-reaching.
Not only is it harmful to the environment it can also lead to a fine or imprisonment. Section 3 (1) of the Litter Act Chapter 30:52 states that a person who without reasonable excuse deposits litter in or on any public place other than in a receptacle placed for the purpose of collecting or in or at any approved site and having deposited any litter leaves such litter is guilty of an offence. The penalty
