11.24 | the holiday season is hella trashy
With Thanksgiving coming up, it seems as good a time as any to remind everybody that, as fun as it is to celebrate over and over again (one year, I think I went to four different Thanksgiving parties in the span of a week), to be mindful of the amount of waste you generate.
“But you were always a good man of business, Jacob,' faltered Scrooge, who now began to apply this to himself.
Business!' cried the Ghost, wringing its hands again. "Mankind was my business; charity, mercy, forbearance, and benevolence, were, all, my business. The deals of my trade were but a drop of water in the comprehensive ocean of my business!”
– Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
✉️ letter #16
I'm feeling Scrooge-like this week, I guess. With Thanksgiving coming up, it seems as good a time as any to remind everybody that, as fun as it is to celebrate over and over again (one year, I think I went to four different Thanksgiving parties in the span of a week), to be mindful of the amount of waste you generate.
Here in Shanghai, with our ever shrinking expat population, we're probably not contributing that much this weekend onwards, all told.
Most of the trash this city generated would've been two weekends ago, when Single's Day (11.11) hit and the top two ecommerce platforms racked up $139 BILLION in sales. That's a helluva lot of packages. And a helluva lot of returns, allegedly.
But in America, trash season is just starting. One recent survey found that Americans usually average 43% more waste during the festive period - about 29 pounds more trash per week.
I guess I could give some "eco-tips" for the holiday, but I'm not really that kind of channel (yet!) . I'd assume you'd know them by now anyway - things like "try not to waste food" and "use newspaper instead of wrapping paper, if you really need to give presents instead of warm loving family/friends time in the first place."
As an aside, I remember the first time I brought those suggestions up to my parents - I recall that I had just come home from college - my mother threw a fit.
"If you want to wrap your presents in newspaper, you can do that for yours. But I refuse to take a gift wrapped in trash," she huffed. She was so mad about it, she wouldn't speak to me for the rest of the afternoon.
A couple of years later, I'm not sure what clicked specifically, but the entire family began wrapping our gifts to each other with artfully collaged old magazines.
And now, for the most part, we barely give gifts at all. Maybe one or two actual things that we already confirmed with each other that needed - but mostly we try to focus on giving each other "experiences:" a great dinner, a hotel stay, a music video (no lie, my parents love LOVE LOVE it when us kids create a music video for them. lol.)
Change happens slowly, and then really really fast, and then you barely remember what it was like before.
I really hope that's going to be the case with generating trash in the future, both during holidays and outside of them.
Going back into "bah humbug"-mode, the externalities of our current single-use explosion in waste creation lives are incredibly dark. Even in places as "advanced" as the North-Eastern United States, you can see what the ongoing processing of waste does to the communities that aren't rich enough to keep it out of their backyards.
In Newark, there's a neighborhood called The Ironbound, which processes trash - sewage, animal fat, waste burnage - from the surrounding areas, including New York City.
It's both one of the most populated neighborhoods in the region, and one of the most toxic. For decades, the community has been plagued by higher rates of asthma, heart issues, and cancer. It is featured in a documentary called The Sacrifice Zone. The name comes from how the powers of be have deemed that the people living there - mostly black and brown - are worth sacrificing to our continued consumerist habits.
The Sacrifice Zone
I've said it two newsletters in a row now and I guess I might as well harp on it for a third - changing individual behaviors will be a drop in the bucket for what actually needs to happen.
But trying to notice (often by reducing) your own consumption habits is a first step towards changing your attitude about them.
And then learning how the system works to keep you comfortable and unthinking about those habits is the next step.
And then hopefully, when you see the human misery and societal costs of keeping you comfortable, you're motivated to do something about it. Ideally by supporting activists who've been fighting on the ground this whole time.
That'd be the best gift I could wish for. Happy holidays!
🌱 the ethical ideas newsreel
- The New Yorker had an absolutely fascinating piece on genetic geneology and how it has been utilized to catch criminals (like the Golden State Killer)... but also how the entire field really needs way more stringent guidelines on personal privacy.
- The idea of paternal leave was in the news this month as Pete Buttigieg took off time to be with his new adopted infants. How great is it though? Despite what various talking heads might tell you, it turns out that everybody wins when dads can take time off.
- I'd never heard of the concept of a "15-Minute City" until reading about this former coal plant in a Toronto suburb, but I'm down with the idea. Basically it's a residential site that has office buildings, shops, parks anad other amenities within a 15-minute walking radius.
- Steel production, shipping, aviation and trucking conribute 40% of global carbon emissions... and it looks like many of its top companies are finally looking into innovations that would help cut down how much they generate. Great. Do it faster. And pleeeeease also don't just use that as an excuse to make more stuff with the same emissions cap.
🎵 song of my week
Says the lead singer/songwriter for the band, Bleachers: "“I fell into a dark place after a loss, and then starting to have that feeling of rage towards the depression – which is when you know there’s a way out. Started looking at the people close to me in my life and finding all the ways we keep ourselves from breaking through.”
“Stop Making This Hurt” started ringing more and more in my head,” Antonoff continued. “then the pandemic hit and i got the band in a room and we played like we may never play again. at that point, it took on another meaning. found myself banging at the door of the next phase of my life and to open brings up all the darkness from the past and what’s holding you back. i could intellectualize it for days but what im truly left with is a voice in my head shouting “Stop Making This Hurt.”
The song is indie-rock-infused pop, and I'm into it. Especially as someone who was dealing with some bummer feelings just a couple of months ago, but has found the proverbial light at the end of this tunnel.
✨enjoying: one final piece of pop culture fun
Hat tip to a good friend currently in Europe for this Christmas advert:
Well, would you look at that? I'm ending this holiday post on a sweet note after all. 😍 It's a Christmas- oh wait, it's not Christmas yet.
It's a Thanksgiving pre-Christmas miracle!
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