Green Your Gift Wrap
If you’ve followed me for a while, you know this is the time of year when I post about more eco-conscious ways to wrap gifts. Why? Think back to last Christmas. Were you the person at the end of the gift opening madness who balled up all of the wrapping paper, ribbons, tape and tags, and stuffed them into a large garbage bag?
It’s likely that the bag of garbage that you collected last year (and every year before that) still exists on the planet. Plastic doesn’t biodegrade. Glitter doesn’t biodegrade. Tape doesn’t biodegrade. And while our garbage gets taken “away”, away really just means moved around a bit on Earth.
Can you make a change this year? We’ve been doing a few different options over the past few years to cut back on our holiday waste. See if one or more of these is doable for you:
Reuse bags from last year - You know you have some stashed away in your house somewhere. Pull them out and pass them on. Bonus points if you tell the recipient to do the same next year!
Buy brown wrapping paper - Avoid the glittery paper as that for sure cannot be recycled. Keep an eye out for brown wrapping paper - often with ink designs, which is fine - and then place that in the recycling bin after gifts are opened.
Grocery bag wrapping - If you’re really savvy, the grocery store will give you FREE wrapping paper! Ask for paper bags at checkout, and then cut it open and turn it inside out to wrap. Go for a festive look with designs made with sharpie, or have your small kids draw or paint on it before you wrap.
Fabric wrap - We did this last year! Stop by a fabric store and get a few yards of holiday fabric. Cut with pinking shears so it doesn’t fray, and then use the Japanese method of wrapping gifts - Furoshiki. (It looks really beautiful under the tree!) After opening presents, you can include it as a part of the gift, or collect it back to use again!
Give it a try! See if you can reduce the amount of waste that your family creates during this holiday season.