Somewhere between Linus van Pelt and Ebenezer Scrooge sits your humble author. I was eight years old when Linus first appeared on television bemoaning the commercialization of Christmas and aluminum trees painted pink, while Scrooge has apparently given up entirely.
I didn't carry a security blanket at eight, but I shared most of Linus' beliefs in quasi-religious beings like Santa and the Easter Bunny (I wasn't so sure about the Great Pumpkin). Things have only gotten worse in the 43 years since then. Grocery stores start wheeling in the plastic Santa the day they take down their Halloween candy isle. Department stores deck the halls the minute that the back-to-school sales are over.
Linus was the Oliver Cromwell of my age. Perhaps that's a bit drastic, because the only weapon that Linus used was his trusty blanket ("They only tease me once"). As the leader of the British military, good old Ollie did his best to make Christmas into a peaceful celebration with family (like that ever happens anyway), but he did it by sending his soldiers out to confiscate all of the food and booze from any house where they could smell a Christmas goose cooking or hear any sort of revelry. I'm sure his spoils went to good use, though. He was known to throw down a pretty good party, contrary to his hypocritical mandate of quiet family prayer – sort of like having Jimmy Swaggart as Secretary of Defense. Ollie was also responsible for the rift between the Irish and English because he took over all of their estates and filled them with his Protestant buddies. He was also responsible for Charles I being about a head shorter at the end of his reign.
When I speak of the holidays, I am talking about the period between November 27, 2008 and January 1, 2009. This covers Thanksgiving, Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Winter Solstice, and New Years Day.
'Tis the season for consumption, falalala, & blah, blah, blah.
During the five weeks of holidays this year:
But we don't consume all of this stuff; most of it is only borrowed from the environment for a few weeks - like trees:
I realize that several big stores this year are considering this their last hurrah before closing the doors, and that Black Friday is not exactly expected to bring them into the black. I was watching the 700 Club or FOX News or one of those religion channels a few years ago and Bill O'Reilly was already whining about an "attack on Christmas" by some evil secular movement before October ended. Maybe we just don't want to be sick of Christmas by the time it gets here. At least save it for Black Friday. He also attributed this "anti-Christmas" movement as an attempt to legalize gay marriage, abortion, euthanasia, and narcotics. News flash, buddy; I can give you long list of legal narcotics. Better yet, call your friend Rush - he knows some pretty good ones.
The big purchase this year is expected to be personal electronics. A lot of cellular telephones will be discarded. Check when you buy if there is some sort of return program.
As of Feb. 17, 2009, 8.5 million homes will need to figure out how to receive digital TV to make room on the VHF spectrum for this. Most are expected to buy government-subsidized ($40 coupon) converters, but many will consider a "family gift" of a new digital TV, and will have TVs to discard. Because digital programming uses less "bandwidth," it frees some of the airwaves for other uses - like your kids sending text messages to each other between classes. The Federal government already has begun auctioning off segments of the regular TV broadcast spectrum to wireless providers, and is expected to make additional frequencies available to police, fire and other emergency services once the conversion to digital is completed.
TVs contain toxic materials, like lead, cadmium, and beryllium, that don't belong in the landfill. The old CRT TVs contain an average of 4 to 8 pounds of lead. While it's still legal to throw TVs in the trash in most states, it's not an environmentally sound practice, because the toxic chemicals can leach into groundwater over time.
New home computer upgrades will have similar results in the waste stream.
Because only about 15% of e-waste gets recycled, I felt that this year was the year to deviate from the regular trees and paper that you are probably sick of reading about anyway and close with an e-waste message:
Cheers,
Bob Peeples, PE