The environmental cost of celebrating Christmas!

As we embark toward the end of the year 2022, it is time to don our Christmas caps and adorn our Christmas trees. Globally, over 2 billion people across 160+ countries celebrate the festival of Christmas. With globalization’s advent, Christmas has become more of a cultural event than a strictly religious affair. This directly impacts the prevalence of its festivities and the huge toll it takes on our environment. After all, Christ did not give up his life for us to recklessly destroy his greatest gift to us: the Earth. (If you're religious and believe in Christ, or any other form of the divine.)

The impact

With more trend-catching, comes the massive burden of degradation of the environment. Although, many might think that felling trees can be hazardous for the environment when it comes to carbon emissions. But, the catch here is not the felling of the tree, but rather the sourcing and subsequent transportation. And after the session, most importantly the disposal of the used trees.

Read more: How green is your Christmas tree?

Annually 120 million trees are cut down on the occasion of Christmas, and only some of them are disposed of properly. Rather than sourcing a tree from further away, getting one nearby can save on the carbon footprint we leave behind in its transportation.

Simply disposing of the tree by burning it would serve little in doing your bit for the environment. Saving it and eventually planting it back can help minimize the negative impacts of Christmas. Christmas trees are known to capture carbon-di-oxide in their branches, roots, and needles.

This is seen as a much more sustainable and eco-friendly way of celebrating Christmas, than choosing artificial trees. The fake trees are made of PVC plastics which are the source of toxic lead and take more than 450 years to decompose if left unattended! Practically speaking, if one is to source a natural tree from a local market nearby, and recycle it by re-planting one, one helps the environment more than one harms it. On the other hand, if you source an artificial tree, you are only helping fill up a landfill outside of your city with toxins, plastic, and metal.

So, there is no win-win rather choosing bad over the worst.

Conclusion

Irrespective of the religion one follows, who wouldn't know about Santa in today’s world? Hopping on to every trend has become a Gen Z thing. And through that, we can witness holidays like Thanksgiving becoming more and more prevalent in Asian countries, like India.

Embracing global cultures and appreciating diversity stands at the heart of a peaceful utopian world. But, the air in that utopian world surely needs to remain breathable!

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