In light of Crystal's recent post on the importance of preserving our environment, this headline from one of our local newscasts yesterday caught my attention:
There's a good chance your holiday returns will end up in a landfill
The number that leaps out from this story is 5 billion - the number of pounds of returned items that end up being thrown away by retailers.
Applying some math from this story from last year on a similar theme to this year's projected returns, it appears that this equates to 2.5 million tons(!) of landfill from returned items, the equivalent of 275,000 garbage trucks filled with sweaters, ties, electronics and other poorly chosen gifts. The trend toward on-line shopping, which brings with it a high rate of returned purchases, apparently has exacerbated the problem.
To be sure, even if you find those numbers appalling, as I do, it's worth noting that this is only about one percent of the total landfill generated in the US each year. Presumably, a good deal of that solid waste comes from industrial processes.
That returned gifts end up in landfills surely is an instance of the throwaway culture decried by Pope Francis in his encyclical on creation and the environment, Laudato Si. Note that, even for something as personal as Christmas gifts, it is not consumers (people like us) individually throwing away unneeded items that directly causes the problem; rather, we feed the items into a process - a retail return process - and the process determines which items go into the landfill. There is a social and economic-structural aspect to the throwaway culture.
There are several aspects of gift-giving that have been leaving me dissatisfied. I spend too much money on it. The shopping deadline is a source of stress - and my life already has too much stress. And - just speaking for myself - getting more stuff is not really a source of satisfaction for me. On this last point, I recognize that I'm probably not typical. But I suspect that it's more common than is generally acknowledged, and the discontent that many folks feel about the Christmas season probably is related to the ennui of getting things that we don't need and that don't really give us pleasure or satisfaction.
I've thought for some time that it would be smart for our family to scale back the gift-giving during Christmas. This landfill story now has me wondering whether we should be purchasing goods for one another at all. I'm not opposed to giving gifts - in fact, I think it's a wonderful custom. But maybe we can be smarter about it. There is a lot to be said for giving people gift cards and letting them choose what they want. And we can give less than we do. To coin a phrase, it really is the thought that counts.
Start by purchasing consumables as gifts. Fruitcakes, cookies, and candy. Or give people movie tickets or gift cards. Or make a donation to something in their name. I got my cousin a "deed" to a square foot of land in a Scottish wild cat refuge.
ReplyDeleteAnd I don't think you can go wrong with a fistful of dollar Lotto tickets for 10-year-old boys. Proceeds support Michigan schools!
Interesting gift giving philosophy, especially since it is directly contrary to my life long spending philosophy.
DeleteI have three credit cards which I use to track expenses rather than borrow money.
Credit Card #1 tracks "permanent" expenses, e.g. books, CDs, good clothes, computers, etc. I end up with more of these than I could use, but I can give them away in ways that don't end up in the landfill.
Credit Card #2 is for things that last around three years, like socks, mulch, gardening material. I tend to get the right amount of this stuff.
Credit Card #3 is for things that vanish instantly like vacations, meals, gas, etc. I spent a lot less on these things than most people do, and I am in better shape financially those most people with the same amount of income, i.e. I save a lot of money.
Jean - fruitcake? So YOU'RE the one? :-)
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Actually, I find most fruitcake not too bad - fruit and cinnamon, what's not to like? If it has some brandy or whiskey, so much the better.
I actually like fruitcake. I'm so ashamed ...
DeleteI like fruitcake, too. Guess that makes us a cult. Wash down the fruitcake with some Kool Aid.
DeleteI like fruitcake (but I'm picky about what kind). I also like mince pie. My grandma used to can green tomato mincemeat (which actually had no meat). My mom made some which did have meat, not to mention a fifth of madeira and a fifth of brandy. It was well preserved. I liked the green tomato kind better, and actually Mrs. Smith's isn't too bad.
Delete"getting more stuff is not really a source of satisfaction for me" -- same here. When I downsized, a few years ago, I finally had a good excuse to ask people to only give me consumables or pictures. I also give mostly consumables, except to young people who are not yet set in life. This year I gave: calling cards, wine, chocolate, orange with cloves, Christmas tree, plane tickets. And notebooks (do those count as consumables?). And money (is that a consumable?). Plus one sweater and a pair of gloves. All my Christmas shopping was done in three (exhausting) hours!
DeleteCome to think of it, money is the ultimate consumable: what else can you do with it, beside spend it?
DeleteClaire, "orange with cloves"; I remember making those clove studded orange pomanders as a child. They smelled so good!
DeleteWhen I was in formation, our spiritual director told us that the absolutely worst gift to give someone is a book, because most of us have such a backlog of stuff to read, and the recipient may have zero interest in the book that changed your life. He recommended wine. I think that's a great suggestion.
DeleteBooks are what all of us in the family give my dad. Except he has zero interest in "the book that changed my life". Mysteries, westerns, classics are what he likes. One wall in every room in his house is covered by bookshelves. When he's gone it's going to be a massive task sorting things out. I'm just grateful that modern cataract surgery preserved his eyesight, because his hearing is shot.
DeleteWine and booze are awful ideas as gifts for people with young children in the house.
DeleteFruitcakes are consumable?
DeleteApparently only according to Stanley and me.
DeleteIs it allowed in houses with young children?
DeleteClaire - re: "money is the ultimate consumable" - I agree. I've always felt, though, that if all I do is give someone a check or a wad of cash, that I'm not meeting the minimum requirement of gift-giving: it's incumbent on me as the giver to know sufficiently about the receiver's desires and needs to get something appropriate.
DeleteThis is why I generally don't feel great about giving gift cards - when push comes to shove, they are a restricted type of cash, insofar as they are the equivalent of cash for the designated retailer (or family of retail brands). To be sure, gift cards, unlike cash, have no value for other retailers, so they're not *exactly* like cash. And to give a gift card presumes that I know enough about the person's preferences to at least know what category and brand of retailer to give them cash for. So to my way of thinking, gift cards get under the wire - barely - as an acceptable form of gift.
I should hasten to add that this is just my private little set of standards, and I don't insist anyone else observe them. Indeed, one set of grandparents used to give a $20 bill for Christmas every year, in a special red envelope supplied by the bank that had a cut-out so we could see Andrew Jackson's portrait through the envelope. I was always delighted to get cash - in fact, I'm still delighted to get cash today :-).
I love the stuff that children pick out for gifts. Right now I am leaning against a bright orange cushion with a close-up of a cat with staring green eyes that the grands gave me for Mother's Day. Or the boho necklace with a pressed flower under glass that one of the girls found at a garage sale. When we were going through my grandmother's things after she was gone I found that she still had the black chiffon hankie with gold sparkly trimming that I had given her as a child (what on earth was I thinking, not a practical thing for wiping one's nose!)
DeleteNo, but a little girl could imagine someone artfully fluttering it about in interesting ways. :-) I still wear my grandmother's gaudies on holidays. You can NOT have too many rhinestones.
DeleteWe never did much gift giving in my family. My father was impossible to buy a gift for. For example when dad went to put on clothes, he always chose what was in the top drawer. When mom washed clothes she always put the new washed clothes in the bottom of the drawer.
ReplyDeleteThe only gift I gave my dad was a joke. During graduate school he would kid me about all the money I would make from all my education and then say that he expected me to buy him a Winnebago when I cashed all that education in.
After I got my doctorate, I noticed a handsome toy Winnebago, and gave to him as a Christmas present. That toy was prominently displayed in our kitchen for many years. My dad would point to it and tell the story.
My elderly parents are coming over this weekend so we can celebrate a belated Christmas. They're also very difficult to buy gifts for. They like to go out to dinner so we've been getting them nothing but gift cards to chain restaurants, from the gift card end-cap displays that they have at grocery stores, Target and the like. I feel somewhat guilty about just giving them gift cards to the same chain restaurants every year, but the town they live in is not exactly a foodie hotbed, and they tell us it's what they want.
DeleteMy mother is on a restricted salt diet and she always wants cards to Bob Evans. Jaysus. Reminds me of when Grampa would give everybody a carton of Pall Malls for Christmas.
DeleteI get people coffee shop or bookstore cards. Five bucks doesn't look like such a cheap-ass gift in a cafe or bookstore.
I send my brother out in Oklahoma pancake mix and a bottle of Michigan maple syrup.
A friend and I exchange vintage salt and pepper shakers from rummage sales or junk stores. It's become kind of a weird joke. Whichever one of us dies first has to take the whole shebang. This year I got matching cobalt toucans!
If people stopped buying all the junk they don't need, would the economy collapse? It would be great if you could add a meter-square solar panel every year instead of having to do it in one shot. Would make a great gift.
ReplyDeleteStanley - the economy would adjust. If we don't spend money on unwanted gifts, chances are we'd spend it somewhere else. If we end up saving the money, the bank lends it out to borrowers, so the money still is put to productive use.
DeleteI think gift giving is vastly different when you don't have much money. Every choice is worried over because you can't afford to make a mistake, and every gift you get has to be useful. My sister gave me a gift certificate at Amazon and so far I've bought Advil (mush cheaper there than the grocery store) and vitamins and a humane trap to catch feral cats to take to get fixed. Maybe there will be enough left to get new underwear ;)
ReplyDeleteIn a city that celebrates all holidays and holy days*, the end of December is a movable celebration.
ReplyDeleteAs our tree was going up on 12/19 (a bit early in the opinion of the tree meister, but a grandson was available to help lift it into the stand), I noticed a tree already discarded [Hanukkah (12/12-12/20) bush?], but it could have been a Christmas tree discarded before travels to Florida.
Then on December 21, New York was agog over the winter solstice with gatherings on street corners to sing and celebrate the shortest day of the year.
We have already discussed the Advent/Christmas smash up from which all Christians suffered.
Kwanzaa, for which you can buy a U.S. postage stamp allows African-Americans to celebrate their heritage while also celebrating Christmas and their religion.
Gradually after New Year's many trees will be on the corners to be picked up by special sanitation trucks and taken to a mulchery. Sometimes there's a backlog and I have seen tons of trees stockpiled in Central Park waiting to return to the earth.
*Holy Days: civic life in NYC observes all holy days by suspending alternate side of the street parking. As far as I know only Orthodox Jews cannot move their cars (light a fire) on their holy days, but it is a beneficence granted to all, with observance of non-parking Islamic holy days steadily increasing to the joy of all car owners.
We have a fake tree, and Raber strings it with lights and crystals from a dismembered chandelier I got at a junk store for $5. I knitted some little birds and a Krampus to put on it. One of the church ladies who does ceramics gave me an angel for the top. We like it. I still have The Boy's wooden Playskool creche I put out. I hope one day there will be another hyper little boy who will play "find the wise men" with me on January 6. But not holding my breath.
DeleteHere in the snow belt we are celebrating Christmas with endless cold and snow. Fortunately the snow has been lighter than at Erie which recorded local and state wide records for snow fall.
ReplyDeleteThe photos of Erie are fantastic. Is it the city's position at the bottom of Lake Erie?--snow that usually makes it to Buffalo.
DeleteYes, Lake effect snow. Cold wind picks up moisture from warm lake water, dumps it over land as snow. Buffalo, Erie, Rochester or anyplace near lakeshore.
DeleteMost of our lake effect snow burns out over Grand Rapids before it gets here. But a lot of blowing, drifting, and about +5 by the thermometer. Bright sunshine, though, since Christmas afternoon. Looks pretty.
DeleteWe got a moderate snow just before Christmas. But mostly it has just been cold. Was -11 when I went to work this morning. Doesn't look like we're getting out of it until next week.
DeleteHere it's about 60 and sunny, thankfully.
DeleteWho get's the lake effect snow depends on the wind direction. We often see lake effect snow offshore heading toward Buffalo from a mostly west south west direction.
DeleteA little different angle brings it into Erie. Even more into Ashtabula then Lake County. We have mainly being getting it when it drops down briefly while on its way to Erie
This Lake Effect is coming from Lake Erie alone. Occasionally Lake Effect will come down more from the North West across Lake Huron before also coming across Lake Erie.
Who knew about lake-effect snow decades ago? Chicago must have had it when I was a kid, but back then it was just a snow storm.
DeleteWe laugh here about "new" weather language, e.g., "Arctic Clipper," "Polar Vortex," signifying cold, very windy, and maybe snowy weather from the North. Are there wordsmiths somewhere making this stuff up? Or just weather people deploying loose language to get our attention.
Yeah, Michigan and Indiana get way more lake effect snow then we do in Chicago - they're on the wrong end of the Lake Michigan weather pattern, which tends to move west to east. I lived in Berrien County, Michigan, which is in the southwest corner of the lower peninsula and is right on Lake Mighigan, for a couple of years when I was a kid. It seemed like we never did anything but shovel. On the other hand, because Chicago was right across the lake, we got the Chicago rock n roll stations on the radio, like WLS and Super CFL. This was before we had discovered there was an FM band :-)
DeleteI have a lot of keepsakes, from both sides of the family. I have gotten to the point in life where I wonder who is going to want them after we're gone, or move into a place where we don't have room for them. I have been giving some of them as gifts to younger family members; especially if they have expressed an interest in them.
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