Years ago, I convinced a beautiful, charming teenage woman to enter a legal contract designed to sell her as chattel to my whims. Our business arrangement was based on the principle of specialization for men and women as follows:
"Specialization of marriage is a powerful force in a family, benefiting the husband and children alike. Parents produce more when they occupy specialized roles, so they can offer higher quality homes, cars, furniture and clothes while raising their own children."
- Duke Glorystone
Fast forward about a decade. The system is working well. Only problem is I never know jack about all the "obvious" special rules the Boss has for our family. Example:
I take money from my specialized labor role and purchase presents and trinkets to go in her stocking at Christmas. I assume the stocking itself is its own wrapping and hence do not wrap any items in the stocking. During our joyous Christmas celebration I am informed this is heartless, thoughtless and am shamed into wrapping all items in the stocking.
Needless to say I've carried a chip on my shoulder ever since about wrapping presents. Not only is uncouth to not wrap everything in the stocking, putting a gift in a bag to avoid wrapping is an insult as well. So I wrap everything in a grudge and I hate it.
Well this year after picking up bag after bag of wrapping waste and boxes, I had a wonderful idea. A beautiful awful idea!
Why should there be so much waste? And as a side benefit, why all this blasted wrapping? I think we all know its bad for the environment, but educate yourself with my totally legit internet research: http://www.recycleworks.org/resident/holiday_facts.html
Facts on Holiday Waste
- From Thanksgiving to New Year's Day, household waste increases by more than 25%. Added food waste, shopping bags, packaging, wrapping paper, bows and ribbons all add up to an additional 1 million tons a week to our landfills (Source: EPA).
- In the U.S., annual trash from gift-wrap and shopping bags totals 4 million tons (Source: Use Less Stuff).
- An estimated 2.6 billion holiday cards are sold each year in the United States, enough to fill a football field 10 stories high. Electronic holiday greeting cards, offered through a variety of websites, are a convenient, no-cost, waste-free alternative (Source: CalRecycle).
- If we each sent one less card, we'd save 50,000 cubic yards of paper (Source: Use Less Stuff). Here are ideas to recycle, buy recycled and reuse cards.
- If every family reused just two feet of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet (Source: CalRecycle).
- At least 28 billion pounds of edible food are wasted each year - equating to over 100 pounds per person (Source: Use Less Stuff).
- Half of the paper America consumes is used to wrap and decorate consumer products (Source: The Recycler's Handbook, 1990).
- Approximately 33 million live Christmas trees are sold in North America every year (Source: EPA).
- To help prevent waste from cutting down and disposing of live trees, you can buy a potted tree and plant it after the holidays.
- The average American spends $800 on gifts over the holiday season (Source: American Research Group).
- According to a national survey, 70% of Americans would welcome less emphasis on gift giving and spending (Source: Center for a New American Dream).
- About 40% of all battery sales occur during the holiday season. Buy rechargeable batteries to accompany your electronic gifts, and consider giving a battery charger as well. Rechargeable batteries reduce the amount of potentially harmful materials thrown away, and can save money in the long run (Source: EPA).
- If each family reduced holiday gasoline consumption by one gallon (about twenty miles), we'd reduce greenhouse gas emissions by one million tons (Source: Use Less Stuff).
|
So next year, I'm going to do my part, by NOT WRAPPING A DANG THING. Its all going to come in bags that get re-used every year and a stocking is a perfectly acceptable wrapper. SAVE THE EARTH!!
and my sanity.
