[Raptor235]

The holidays are a joyous times for gift giving, good food, time with family and friends and waste. That’s right, the holiday season seems to send all good environmental intentions out the backdoor like a 3 week old Christmas tree. Here’s a rundown of some very unsettling statistics about the holiday season. Keep this in mind over the next couple weeks and see if you can curb your environmental impact.

• In the UK, the Royal Mail delivers around 150 million cards and packets each day during the pre-Christmas period. It is estimated that up to 1 billion Christmas cards (17 for every man, woman and child) could end up in the garbage across the UK.

• In the United States over 2.5 billion cards. That’s enough to fill a football field 10 stories high. Reduce that number by one card and full story is removed and that saves about 50,000 cubic yards of paper.

• During the Christmas holiday season 30% more waste is produced than in other times of the year.

• 50 million Christmas trees are purchased in the U.S. Of those, 30-plus million get carted to the landfill every yearYou can find the entire article here http://aboutmyplanet.com/environment/season-wasteful

[peachy]

Wow. I'm totally suprised by these stats. Yes, I get the Christmas cards, but I try to do something with them afterwards. Not that it really helps I suppose.

But 50 million trees? Wow. That's really mind blowing.