Think green this Christmas.
This was the joint appeal of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) and environmental group Ecowaste Coalition to Filipinos as they start preparing for the holidays.
Both groups believe that the observation of Christmas could still be meaningful even without extravagance in gifts and parties.
Caloocan Bishop Deogracias Iniguez Jr., public affairs chairman of CBCP, said the celebration of Christmas does not have to be festive because what matters is the essence of the season, which is to remember the birth of Jesus Christ.
The Ecowaste Coalition observed that from the originally simple and joyous celebration of the Redeemer’s birth, Christmas has transformed into a pageant of unbridled consumerism and has become the “most wasteful and most energy-consuming festivity in the Christian calendar.”
LJ Pasion, a youth campaigner from the EcoWaste Coalition, appealed: “Let us all pay attention to the ecological and health costs of the choices we make this Christmas time. Any action we take to prevent waste and pollution as we rejoice in the birth of the Redeemer will go a long way in conserving our depleted resources and in curbing climate change.”
The EcoWaste Coalition pointed out that over-the-top decorations, marketing gimmicks, shopping extravaganzas, and the ubiquitous trash created by the holiday frenzy have increasingly shrouded the true meaning of Christmas and aggravated the country’s environmental and health problems.
Metro Manila’s trash generation of about 8,000 cubic meters daily is expected to go up by one-third during the Christmas season due to the consumption spree.
Plastic bags, disposable containers, packaging materials, kitchen waste and party leftovers from the flurry of Christmas activities usually end up in poor communities where these are dumped or burned, endangering the health of residents with toxic pollution, added EcoWaste.
To guide the public, the EcoWaste Coalition released a 25-point “Eco-Advisory on Greening and Simplifying Christmas,” containing practical steps on how to prevent drowning in wastes and toxins during the joyful season.
For Christmas decorations, the environmentalist group appealed for the use of recycled materials in creating the Scene of Nativity or manger.