Opinion : Christmas is a very wasteful time of year

Believe it or not its just over a week to Christmas. How time flies by.

The gifts for my friends have been purchased and now it’s just the wrapping and writing of the Christmas cards left to do.

Over the next few days everyone in the town will be wrapping their presents and writing cards. Naturally there will be a lot of wrapping paper and sticky tape needed.

Of course in opening the present the wrapping will be torn off and discarded. Soon all that wrapping paper will be on it’s way to High Heavens at Booker. What a waste.

All the energy, resources and fuel spent transporting the wrapping paper to the recipient of a gift only for it to be dumped shortly after.

To make matters worse the wrapping is so expensive to buy. Unfortunately my good self just can’t afford to splash out lots of cash on frivolities such as wrapping paper.

For ages now every present given to me has been unwrapped carefully, the paper trimmed and carefully rolled up to be re-used again. I’ve lost count of how many pieces of re-cycled wrapping paper my good self has in stock.

But why do we have to use expensive glossy paper in the first place?

The paper serves only to temporarily hide what the actual gift thus adding an air of excitement for the recipient so why not use newspaper to wrap your presents?

This year your humble servant must admit to using newspaper to wrap the presents for several people, naturally my favourite friends have the best wrapping on their presents but for those whom my good self is least fond newspaper will do.

At Christmas time there is usually talk of recycling cards, trees and paper after Christmas is over however nobody ever talks of preventing the waste by not sending cards, not using fancy wrapping paper or using an artificial tree thus negating the waste when the festive period is over.

Just think of all the food that will be wasted at this time of year too. Rather than buying too much only for it to be wasted surely it would be better to give some food to one of the homeless in Wycombe town centre?

Or why not do something decent and invite one of the homeless to your home and share a Christmas meal with them? After all this time of year is about thinking of others rather than ones self.

I’m surprised that a scheme hasn’t been set up where families can come forward to offer a place at their Christmas table to a homeless person. Surely it would be the ultimate act of charity?

What do you think?

*My blogs are published every Tuesday and Friday evening around 8.00pm here on the WycombeToday.com website.

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