Trash for Christmas 

 As winter descends, we enter the most materialistic time of the year – from Hanukkah to Christmas, Kwanzaa, and New Years, Americans spend more money than at any other time of the year. That means TONS of trash, food waste, and unsustainable spending habits that hurt both our wallets and the earth. As we approach the holiday season please be conscious AND WARY of rampant materialism.    

Our consumerist way of life is killing us and everything else. The micca and diamonds mined for our makeup and jewelry is done by African children who risk their lives daily so that we can feel beautiful. The electronic waste from all of the discarded electronics are burned, releasing carcinogens into our atmosphere, killing the people and animals in the lands to which we export our trash. – out of sight out of mind. The plastic that encases nearly everything we buy will out live us by 1000 years, and for what? 

So please, as someone who would like to live beyond the year 2050, please, please be careful this season. Let’s try to make better choices – buy local, buy second hand, or make it yourself.  Wrap presents in old cloth, newspaper, or reusable bags rather than paper that will instantly become trash. The fast fashion industry produces more waste and carbon emissions than international travel, and for what? A cheap shirt made by women and children paid a slave labor that will be worn a dozen times before being discarded. Even if we donate items to second hand stores such as goodwill, only 15% will ever get resold. 

So this holiday season I challenge you to to better. Gift experiences or edibles; shop vintage or second hand; donate to a charity or nonprofit in someones honor; plant a tree; adopt a highway; pay for a child’s education in an developing world, or to have a well dug to save a village; contribute to your church’s efforts to uplift the local community. Spend your money in a way that will make the world a better place. 

There is no gift I would treasure more than a clean earth and a secure future. 

Trash

One mans’ trash 
is another mans’ treasure.

We use this phrase 
to justify
yard sales
rather than 
to understand
income inequality
global poverty
and the preservation
of resources.

A cigarette wrapper. 
hidden among the sand 
kill the planet 
kill yourself
it’s all the same 
I guess.