Robert Lilienfeld and William Rathje, authors of Use Less Stuff: Environmental Solutions for Who We Really Are, are also the founders of Use Less Stuff Day, celebrated since 1994 on the Thursday preceding Thanksgiving. Both efforts are an effort to convince consumers to think about how they consume – products, electricity, water and other daily routine resources.

The holidays are when Americans generate the most trash. Did you know:
•    Annual trash from gift-wrap and shopping bags totals about 4 million tons.
•    Third class mail adds another 4.4 million tons to mail bags and, ultimately, to garbage bags.
•    Between Thanksgiving and Christmas, Americans send out more than 2.3 billion cards. Laid end to end, that's almost 26,000 miles of cards, enough to circle the Earth and then some.