zainabenv1017: Blogprompt Number Five

Christmas is coming!

Is Christmas sustainable? How would it work in a changed world?

Christmas is not sustainable on an individual level in its current form. People spend money that they are don't actually have in order to satisfy consumer desire. If one considers the impact of Christmas on an economic and environment scale, then Christmas in its current form is not sustainable.

Christmas would be totally unrecognisable in a changed world from what it is today. The reason for this is that resources will become more expensive therefore, this may reduce demand and environmental concerns may also change the way consumers consume goods. If goods become unobtainable, because of exorbitant cost, this would reduce the amounts of goods bought for Christmas and this would also improve the environment; as most goods are heavily packaged when being assembled to entice the consumer to buy.

In the long term the consumer will have to face the choice of paying a much higher price for goods or choosing not to buy them because the value for money is poor. If this were to happen, then Christmas may then be looked upon more as a religious and cultural event rather than a consumer led one.

It may mean than people in general might look at the value and morality of consuming goods and this may lead people to be more responsible individuals.

Unfortunately some of the charitable organisations jump on the band wagon to sell Christmas as they have gift for the consumer to purchase. Although some consumers may look at the purchase as a more ethically and morally justifiable purchase. However, many of the goods and cards sold have a relatively high costs to the environment and individuals alike.

Christmas Facts

Christmas will create 3 million extra tons of
rubbish, but we’ll recycle just 12% of that.
Over Christmas as much as 83 sq. km of
wrapping paper will end up in UK bins, enough
to cover an area larger than Guernsey.
In 2001, 7.5 million Christmas trees were
bought and only 1.2 million were recycled.
Discarded Christmas trees create enough
waste to fill the Albert Hall three times.
The equivalent of 200,000 trees are used to
produce the 1.7 billion cards sent each year in
Britain.
(Source www.defra.gov.uk , 2004)