Tips to reduce waste during the holidays

Americans produce a lot of trash during the holiday season – more than any other time of the year. In fact, we throw away somewhere between 25% and 43% more trash during the period between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day.  The extra waste – from shopping and packaging, wrapping and gift giving, and holiday meals amounts to an extra 25 million tons of garbage.

And of course the real problem is that our trash pollutes, ending up littering our communities and harming our environment. The good news is that there are plenty of things we can do to reduce waste during the holidays – starting by buying less stuff in the first place.

PIRG and Environment America put together tips for this holiday season – from giving gifts that involve less new stuff, like the gift of an experience or buying used or refurbished, to using reusable gift wrapping to being thoughtful about holidays meals to reduce food waste. 

Learn our tips in our Zero Waste for the Holidays webinar.