Christmas! — damaging the environment! True, the holidays would draw the best from us. But they also bring what seems like an environmentalist’s worst nightmare! The environmental impacts of spending on books, clothes, alcohol, electrical appliances and lollies during the festive season are calculated by a new report. The report by the Australian Conservation Foundation is titled “The Hidden Cost of Christmas”. According to it, every dollar Australians spend on new clothes as gifts consume 20 litres (four gallons) of water and require 3.4 square meters (37 sq feet) of land in the manufacturing process.
A study of the last Christmas on this line reveals that Australians spent A$1.5 billion (US$1.1 billion) on clothes, which required more than half a million hectares (1.2 million acres) of land to produce. It’s not only that. It also found, last December water that would approximately fill 42,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools was used in the production of Christmas drinks. Most of the water was used to grow barley for beer and grapes for wine.
Via Environmental News Network