Give Green, Fight Waste, Make Change
Black Friday has made the news in recent years for the frenzied and sometimes dangerous enthusiasm it incites in the nation’s most devoted shoppers, many of whom gather outside malls and big box stores as soon as they’ve downed their turkey. But the Environmental Protection Agency gives us another reason to think twice about having participated in the biggest shopping day of the year: the estimated 25 percent increase in household waste in the United States between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day. That translates to about 1 million extra tons of gift wrapping and product packaging (including those endlessly frustrating plastic blister packs in which all electronics are packaged). A number of groups have come together to fight the waste that seems to come hand in hand with the Black Friday, claiming the holiday week for less wasteful and more sustainable causes. Here are a couple ways to give sustainably this month: