Hello and welcome to another edition of Kid News Convo, a conversation on a single topic that is relevant or important for kids who want to be in the know.

I'm Tori. Today we're going to focus on the holidays, which are just a couple of weeks away.

And while it can be a wonderful time of receiving gifts, seasonal decorations, tasty food, and being with family

and friends. It also leads to something many don't think about, and that's a lot of trash.

According to Stanford University, Americans throw away roughly 25% more trash between Thanksgiving

and the New Year than any other time, generating 25 million extra tons of garbage.

But there are some simple solutions we can all put to use.

So I'm excited to introduce my guest today, Rebecca Benner, who is the managing director of climate programs at the Nature Conservancy,

and has a lot of great ideas and suggestions on this topic.

Hi, Rebecca. Thanks for being here. Hi, thanks for having me. Now, first of all, I want to

reassure our listeners that you're not a Grinch. You're not going to say no presents, no decorations,

right? No, I have a 10-year-old. I think we have allowed to say that.

Great.

So what do you suggest?

Are there some ways that we can kind of find the right balance between keeping the holiday spirit and not producing so much garbage?

Yeah, I mean, honestly, this is top of mind for me.

It's someone who works on climate

and works in conservation and I have a 10-year-old daughter who gets so excited about Christmas,

it's not even funny. And she, I would say she wants for nothing. And yet she still loves the

idea of opening and receiving gifts and giving them too, slowly but surely. So I think a lot about

this. And I've been trying to get more creative lot about this and I've been trying to get more

creative or my husband and I've been trying to get more creative as she gets older. Thinking about

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