I love being eco friendly. I’m not saying I’m the perfect little green gal but I try my best when I can. Even if it’s small things like skipping on the grocery bag at the store. Every step makes a difference.
This holiday season, on the good old Face Book, I saw an eco friendly post recommendation that had not even dawned on me. The wastefulness of wrapping paper. Let me throw some quick facts at you.
-if wrapping paper has any sort of texture to it, if it’s shiny, glittery or metallic it can not be recycled.
-it takes about 6 mature trees to make a ton of wrapping paper
– the average American gives 42 gifts per year, its estimated that if just 3 of these gifts were wrapped in re-usable gift wrap it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields
-it creates 4 million tons of trash each year in the US.
-most can not be recycled because of dyes, because it’s thin, has tape, laminates and other decorations on it.
Long story short, wrapping paper is landfill nightmare that repeats every single year. So this year to try to save a penny and do my part for the Earth I opted out of wrapping paper. I planned on using brown paper bags, an eco friendly alternative, until an opportunity arose. I work at a physical therapy clinic and we get large size shipments for clinic supplies. We had a huge box come in with giant foam rollers and stuffed in the box to protect the equipment was all this white paper. Normally we would ball it up and throw it away, which takes up a ton of room in the trash bin. So instead, I took the time to fold the white paper up and decided it would become my Christmas wrapping paper!
Next, I had planned on getting bows to make them a little bit more festive. Although bows are not recycle friendly they can be reused year after year unlike wrapping paper. Luckily, I hit another opportunity. I was thrifting at Life’s Treasure Christmas store and the last week the store is open you can fill a grocery bag for $5 with whatever you find. Along with some new decoration pick ups I found 8 rolls of ribbons! Wallet friendly bow situation.
So, I used shipping paper as my wrapping paper and thrifted bows. As I said, I’m not the most perfect green citizen but I try my best even if it is only small steps. I am so happy that this Christmas season I made an impact to reduce wrapping paper use! I urge you all to try alternative wrapping next year.
Merry Christmas to all!
Jess Edmisten 