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Christmas lights in downtown Hamburg: According to environmental aid, doing without should be “a matter of course”
Photo: Markus Scholz / dpa
The German Environmental Aid is appealing for Christmas lights to be avoided in cities and private households because of the energy crisis.
"This winter, it should be a matter of course that both the Christmas lights in cities and those in houses and apartments will be dispensed with," said Federal Managing Director Jürgen Resch of the editorial network Germany (RND).
"In view of the war in Ukraine, the energy shortage, but also for reasons of climate protection, we should pause for a moment," he said.
Resch pointed out the power consumption.
"The private lighting orgies alone cause a power consumption of over 600 million kilowatt hours of electricity per year - as much as a medium-sized city with 400,000 inhabitants consumes in a year."
Toys are becoming more expensive due to higher energy costs
Resch suggested one illuminated tree per city and municipality.
»Perhaps this can be reduced to one lighted tree per community.
Consciously doing without here, saving and showing solidarity could even make this Christmas season a very special one.«
Meanwhile, it's not just lighting that's getting more expensive because of the sharp rise in energy prices.
The toy industry is also anticipating rising prices in view of the Christmas business.
"The increases by the manufacturers should be around five to six percent on average," said Ulrich Brobeil, managing director of the German Association of the Toy Industry (DVSI), the "Rheinische Post".
According to Brobeil, in a representative survey of the 215 member companies, 83 percent also see price increases as an option in addition to savings in energy costs.
For 45 percent, the business is "strongly to very badly" endangered, 38 percent of those surveyed see themselves as "moderately" threatened.
There could be delivery problems with individual items because parts from Asia were missing.
However, there are no general delivery problems.
apr/dpa
