According to the Medical University of South Carolina, waste output increases by at least 25% during the holiday season.
I totally believe that! We have already taken an extra trip to the Recycle Center with all the boxes and filling paper from all the online ordering I've done. And I had an armload of styrofoam and plastic wrap that I had to throw away last night. And it's not even Christmas yet!
Here are a few tips to lessen your load:
Put less packaging on your gifts. Many suggest re-using wrapping paper, but we know this is not always so easy to do, better yet use gift bags instead as these are easy to save and use for many years.
OR...Make your own wrapping paper. Use children's artwork, stylish magazine ads, or comics from the newspaper. (If every family wrapped just 3 gifts this way, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields. -Sierra Club)
When throwing a party, don't use plastic utensils, paper plates or napkins.
Use do-it-yourself holiday decor, like berries and pine combs.
Recycle and craft with used wine and drink bottles.
Buy recycled or tree-free cards, made from materials like hemp.
Courtesy of Charlotte, NC
We are going plain this year with no bows and ribbons. But next year I want to come up with some eco-friendly decorations to make the present wrapping fun!
Edited to Add: Here are some FUN Green Gift Wrapping Tips HERE - Thanks Monica! These are great!
Amber from Life Love Green Blog MAKES her own cloth bags as wrapping! See HERE! They are awesome!
Tell me what you are doing to help with Holiday Waste!
Visit My Baby's Green too! ~ Tina has a great eco-friendly store AND blog. She gives away great items too! Right now there is a giveaway up for THREE Winners to win FIVE Diapers!
5 crunchy comments:
Wow I knew all this gift wrap had to be a problem, but i figured b/c paper is recyclable it was okay! :) Good to know... I will have to plan better next year! :) I do save and reuse bags, ribbons and bows and stuff though. Some of them have gotten passed around our family for YEARS now! haha!
I wrapped a robe in a pillowcase and I always save cloth ribbon from ANY package for use later. I have a special bin for it.
I use reuseable cloth bags, they are great and they look great too!
Hurray for Amber! When I first read your blog post this morning I couldn't believe you didn't mention cloth bags!!
I made a whole bunch last year (was able to totally forgoe paper wrapping) and even convinced my mom and MIL to use a few. It made me smile to pull them out this year and reuse them! I don't have a blog, but I made mine very similar to how Amber made hers with the ribbon attached to the back.
Can I link a picture or two here?
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs600.snc4/58057_1762780467377_1175042677_2091320_900912_n.jpg
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs1391.snc4/164330_1762781227396_1175042677_2091329_5878880_n.jpg
http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc4/hs933.snc4/74602_1762779907363_1175042677_2091316_6958994_n.jpg
We always save Christmas cards and reuse them with decorations, or by gluing them onto store shopping bags with handles to make gift bags. This year, I also pasted a few onto reused gift boxes to make them more fancy...since I know my 18 yr-old niece wouldn't appreciate a children's place box. "Santa" uses some cloth bags that my sister made too.
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