Nature Connection: Wrapping It All Up

Here it is, gift season once again. After weeks of hype that began before Halloween had passed, the time for attending to gift lists, shopping, wrapping, and giving is actually upon us.

Over the years festive wrapping has been part of gift giving, whether for birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, baby showers, and of course, winter holidays such as Christmas. Wrapping not only conceals the gift, making it a fun mystery for the receiver to open, but can make for a beautiful, thoughtful, even humorous presentation. Add some ribbon and a tag that sparkles, and the giver can feel happy, even proud.

I don’t know about you, but I always assumed all that wrapping paper could be recycled. It cannot. My grandmother always saved all wrapping paper, smoothing it out, carefully folding it neatly and storing it away for later use. My mother did the same and for a little while, so did I. But then I got lazy, and all the paper got tossed in a paper bag to go to recycling. Or so I thought.

Well, it turns out my grandmother was right. Reusing that paper was smart. It saved money, which was her priority, but it also made environmental sense, which is my priority.

The wrapping paper industry is huge. The trees grown to make wrapping paper are not grown in a sustainable fashion, the amount of water used to manufacture the paper is enormous and the runoff is full of poisonous chemicals that go right into our waterways. The inks used to decorate the paper are even more toxic, both to create and clean up. In other words, the whole process is really not good for the health of the planet or for us.

If there were far fewer of us wrapping one gift each, the overall impact wouldn’t be so onerous. The truth is, of course, that there are many millions of us with multiple gifts to wrap, which means there is a massive amount of gift wrap being made that is tossed out almost immediately.

Add to this depressing story the impact of plastic “ribbon” and glittery tags that are tossed in the trash and well, what’s a person to do that wants to give a pretty gift and also be environmentally responsible?

There is wrapping paper out there that is being made from trees harvested in sustainable fashion printed with eco-friendly and safe inks. There are fabric ribbons and tags made of recycled paper, but all of these alternatives can be expensive.

Some cultures wrap gifts in fabric, even tea towels that can be used after the gift is unwrapped. Some use newspaper or magazine pages while others decorate paper boxes.

Giving up gift wrapping may seem extreme but in reality, wrapping gifts with decorative paper is relatively new. Before the 1950s, gift wrap was expensive and only used sparingly by those who could afford it. Over the years it became mass produced and affordable, and today it is hard to imagine not using it.

So here it is, a few weeks before Christmas. The shops are full of all sorts of fun papers and ribbons and tags as well as gift bags coated with toxic plastic coatings no kid or pet should chew on. I know, it’s a party pooper comment but it’s also a true statement.

For the last few years, I’ve bought no new paper, ribbon, or bags. It’s amazing but I still have a lot of all these things, due to the fact that I always bought new rolls each year. Even now I still have multiple rolls of birthday and generic paper and a whole lot of holiday paper. We use a lot of gift bags in my family, so we tend to trade them back and forth and save them year to year.

Ribbon is running out but to be fair, the cats stole all the bows and the ribbons ended up in the trash and no one really missed them. I’ve cut tags from last year’s cards and that has worked out well. Do I get double points for reusing AND recycling? Inquiring minds want to know.

As the holidays approach, perhaps think about the gift-wrapping options available to you. Can you save paper as you unwrap to use another year? Can you use creative and sustainable ways to conceal your gift? Even if we only do this a little bit at a time, it will add up.

Also, others learn from our examples. We don’t need to preach or suggest or anything, really. If you make a nice package or fun tags, people will notice. They might ask how you did it and you can share your ideas.

None of us bought wrapping paper or ribbon to add to the planet’s woes. We were just having fun making pretty packages. Now that we know, however, it seems imprudent to continue on our merry way with no care for what we are wasting, for the toxins we are responsible for.

Don’t throw anything away. Use up what you have. There’s no need to be wasteful. But maybe try a new way with a few gifts and see how it goes. There are many fun and easy ideas online if you’re looking for inspiration.

In the meantime, please enjoy a guilt free and fun holiday season.