The holiday season is in full swing, with Halloween and Thanksgiving in the rearview mirror and Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and New Years in the weeks to come.

And with it, trash. A lot of trash.

We tend to be excellent at throwing things “away,” but many would be challenged to truly describe what “away” looks like. There’s a traditional assumption that food waste goes to landfills, and likewise recyclable materials like papers, plastics and aluminum are recycled. In a more perfect world, that would by-and-large be the case.

Only, it’s not — at least, not the overwhelming norm. In fact, the opposite is true in many cases. 

A growing plastic problem

It’s well documented that the recycling campaigns of the last few decades have been, in many respects, one of the most successful marketing campaigns ever — but they’ve far from delivered on the expectations most Americans now have of the things they recycle. 

For instance, upwards of 90 percent of plastic worldwide used in the U.S. is not recycled each year — much higher than one would believe given all the recycle bins and recycle symbols. Ironically, that’s the highest rate that the Environmental Protection Agency has on record, dating to 2018.

Aluminum was recycled at a rate of around 34 percent in 2018, according to the EPA, with beer and soft drink cans making up about half of the recycled material. Paper made up one of the higher traditional recycled materials at 68 percent.

So while some materials like paper seem to be recycled consistently, others are inconsistently recycled at best and willfully cast aside at worst.

The latest big news in the plastic scene revolves around the fifth U.N. negotiations on a global plastic treaty. The Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee (INC) failed to reach an agreement during their session last month, and plans for a sixth session (called INC-5.2) are being developed. More and more, people and government bodies are acknowledging the growing problem of plastic pollution.

But any official treaty, even one that comes early 2025, will take years to implement and likely focus on future regulation, meaning it cannot absolve us of our pollution of the past. Already, we’ve found microplastics present in the bloodstream of a majority of people. 

Plastic certainly has its uses, with thousands of different types and situations in which it is useful But it has also creeped into nearly every corner of our lives — overconsumption being one of them. A 2022 study estimated that nearly half of all plastics ever produced were produced in the last 15 years. This suggests an enormous increase in both the use and production of plastic. 

Holiday overconsumption exacerbates the pollution problem

These facts matter, especially in the holiday season, when celebrations are abundant and costumes, decorations, gifts, lights, food and drinks are manufactured and bought at particularly high levels. 

Moreover, there exists an emissions strain of shipping so many holiday packages around, with online shopping becoming the dominant form of gift shopping nowadays — not to mention products that are sent back. As cited in Inside Climate News, around 15 percent of purchases in the holiday season are returned — sometimes landing them on landfill, but nonetheless adding to the emissions cost of shipping the product to its destination in the first place.

In fact, Buy Now: The Shopping Conspiracy, which was released a few months ago on Netflix, is a documentary chronicling the rise of online-based overconsumerism — especially Amazon’s famous ‘buy now’ feature and the environmental impacts that it has been having by getting more people to buy more without thinking of any environmental costs.

Their no indication trends will reverse regarding online shopping, either; between the ease of having the world marketplace at your fingertips to having it arrive at your doorstep, there isn’t much reason to expect one. It could be a function of society and how interdependent we are with our phones today.

Should we as a society stop buying online or decorating for the holidays? Even if that were the answer, you’d be hard-pressed to convince everyone to do a complete 180 turn in favor of environmentalism which has been conflated with a “green new deal” or “liberal agenda”. And for the record, I’m not advocating for everyone to become the holiday grinch — though there has been a trend highlighting the iconic character as a sustainable champion due to his distaste for overconsumption and craftiness in reusing discarded food and materials.

We can, however, at the very least be mindful and think about ways to behave with a bit more environmental stewardship throughout the holiday season as we prepare to buy decorations for New Year’s or start thinking about Valentine’s day. Whether that be reducing the time lights stay on, purchasing sustainably made items, thrifting for clothes or old decorations, reusing bags, or anything else part of our holiday traditions.

The planet needs us to think of “away” when we think of throwing garbage away; it needs us to remember that our overconsumption can and will be our downfall if we aren’t careful, and that things that we don’t want or no longer see use for don’t just disappear into a vast nothingness.

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