If you've ever hosted a holiday celebration, joined the gift-wrapping assembly line, or celebrated just about any holiday, you've noticed the amount of waste that often comes along with these festive traditions. During the holiday season, we generate about 25% more waste than we do at other times of the year! Finding ways to reduce waste is important for the Texas environment.
- Each Texan throws away over 7 pounds of trash each day. That means your family is expected to throw away over 200 pounds of trash per person in the month of December alone!
- The average family of four wastes about $1,500 worth of food each year. With an increased number of gatherings during the holidays, there are more opportunities for wasted food.
- Around 25-30 million live trees are sold in the U.S. each year. Once the holidays are over and the trees have dried out, many of them end up in the trash.
- If every household in Texas wrapped just one gift in a reusable bag, we could save nearly 10 million gift bags!
- Approximately 1.3 billion holiday cards are sent each year. That's a lot of paper!