A Guide to Reducing Waste When Decorating for the Holidays
Last Updated: Mar 28, 2025There is something special about driving home from work on a cold, dark December night and seeing house after house lighted by twinkling, colored lights announcing the imminent arrival of one of the most cherished times of the year. When Christmas finally does roll around, the Santa Clause, reindeer, elves, and thousands of other decorations that adorn the inside and outside of our homes add to the holiday spirit as family and friends gather to share and celebrate a time of giving.
What most people do not realize, however, is that holiday decorations represent a significant source of pollution, unnecessary energy use and cause problems to the environment. While we often hear of the waste associated with the increase in consumerism during the Christmas shopping season, the things we use to adorn our homes during this season also contribute to the wastefulness that has come to define this special time of year.
Table of Contents
- Christmas Lights
- The Hidden Cost of Presents under the Tree and Santa Hanging on the Wall
- How to Decorate for an Environmentally Friendly and Non-Toxic Christmas
Christmas Lights
Christmas lights are perhaps the most common type of holiday decorations. However, the energetic cost of lighting up our homes and yards is substantial. One recent report found that the United States alone used 6.5 billion kWh to light their Christmas lights during 2008. That is more than twice the amount of energy used per year by certain developing countries such as Nepal and Cambodia. Since an average of 1.22 pounds of CO2 is produced for each kWh of electricity consumed, Christmas lights in the U.S. alone send up close to 8 billion pounds of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, thus making those twinkling lights on our homes a major contributor to global warming.
Tobias Roberts
Tobias runs an agroecology farm and a natural building collective in the mountains of El Salvador. He specializes in earthen construction methods and uses permaculture design methods to integrate structures into the sustainability of the landscape.
