Green Wrapping
Fact
Over the holiday season, Americans generate 5 million more pounds of waste per year. Wrapping paper and shopping bags account for 4 million pounds of that extra waste, and that doesn’t even count all the birthday, anniversary and wedding gifts that we wrap throughout the year.
Get Started
- Keep your gift wrapping rip-free, and you can reuse it for many occasions like scrapbooking, decorations and paper mache.
- If wrapping does get ripped, use the small piece as filler in packaging or just to spruce up a gift bag.
- Instead of using wrapping paper, which isn’t often recyclable, try a reusable bag and tissue paper or the Sunday comics of the newspaper.
Become a Pro
- Give the gift of reuse. Encourage the receiver of your gifts to pass the wrap along. See how many turns your circle of friends can get from that gift bag
- Make a statement! Skip any wrapping at all and inform your friends and families that you spent the money you saved from cards and wrapping on upgrading their gift or set it aside for your charity of choice.
- Buy things online and have the package sent directly to the gift receiver’s home. That way the packaging becomes the wrapping. Make sure to check the “it’s a gift” box so the online store doesn’t send the receipt.
As of June 17th 2011 we have upgraded our comment system to use Facebook comments. The below comments are closed and are listed for historical purposes.
Sue
posted on June 20th, 2009 at 6:56 am
You could also use a plain brown handled gift bag and treat it like one of those inter-office envelopes that circulates in corporate America: write the name of the giver and receiver and encourage the receiver to keep it going. You could draw a large green triangle with arrows on it to encourage re-use. See how many names can fill the gift bag from re-use before it is retired!
Cassandra
posted on August 20th, 2009 at 9:40 am
Or you could save any tootsie pop wrappers that you use, and use those to cover a box- a very ingenious idea.
Phyllie
posted on September 3rd, 2009 at 5:06 pm
I learned all of this from my grandmother back in the 1950s. She ironed gift wrap and reused it, then either took it back from us to use again or encouraged us to do the same.
Every Christmas or other gifty occasion, I ask everyone to please not tear the gift wrap so I can take it home. Now some of them are starting to get my drift. We use a lot of reusable gift bags now, too. A neat idea I tried was to cover an empty coffee can (or other can or plastic container) with fabric or paper, poke holes for a wire or string handle, add the gift and top with shredded paper. The thought is that they would reuse/regift the can.
Lisa
posted on September 7th, 2009 at 5:09 am
A few other ideas besides reusing gift wrap and bags:
Use scrap paper from your computer (with one side printed on) and have the kids draw on the clean side.
Give reusable shopping bags (Toys R Us is even selling a reusable bag now as a gift bag).
*My favorite* Buy old tins at thrift stores. Before the holidays you can find a ton and they look really cool under the tree.
I think many people already do this but don’t forget to reuse cards by cutting off the front flap with the picture on it. Use them for gift tags or postcards.
Linda
posted on December 8th, 2009 at 8:04 am
My grandchildren and I are recycling bags to use for gifts. They are painting and decorating them with pictures of holiday decorations, jewelry, and so forth. The pictures come primarily from the numerous flyers enclosed in the newpaper in November and December.