Sustainable Gift Wrapping

With smaller holiday celebrations this year combined with shipping gifts directly, you may not be wrapping as many presents as usual. A Stanford study showed that if every family wrapped just 3 presents in reused materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields! So let’s talk sustainable gift wrapping!

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I’ve practiced sustainable gift wrapping nearly as long as I can remember. I may have started saving and reusing wrapping paper just to be frugal, but I know my efforts have drastically cut down our resource usage over the years. I just love when frugality and sustainability intersect!

Packaging

When I see overflowing trash and recycling bins after Christmas or birthday parties, it makes me sad to see all that packaging. Today when everyone is ordering online to avoid exposure to the virus, we have even more packaging.

It takes pre-planning to cut your piles of boxes, bubble wrap and product packaging. Shopping local helps. Making gifts helps a lot. Or you can shop for sustainable gifts from companies that have cut their carbon footprint and tapped into creative uses of materials that won’t hurt the planet. Read my article on Sustainable Gift Ideas here.

Recycling

Is wrapping paper recyclable or not? Well, that depends. First you need to find out if your town or recycler accepts wrapping paper. Even if they do, wrapping paper that has plastic or glitter will contaminate all the paper in the batch. So it’s better to put mixed materials in the trash instead of trashing bales of contaminated paper at recycling centers.

Wrapping Paper Alternatives

Kraft paper rolls make for good wrapping paper. I picked one up – at a tag sale, of course. You can decorate the paper any way you want or leave it plain and add a colorful bow. Or keep it rustic with twine, plaid or holly.

I love to use old maps as wrapping paper. I often get fundraiser mail with maps too, such as from Doctors Without Borders. The maps go directly into my wrapping paper box. Maps offer more variety in color and design than you might expect!

As a kid, I loved using the comics to wrap gifts. It’s colorful and adds a bit of humor.

Saving Wrapping for Reuse

After each event with gifts, I sort through the strewn remnants. I save every decent piece of wrapping paper, tissue papers, boxes and bows. When I wrap I start with the smaller items that are most likely to match paper scraps I have on hand.

Have you ever wrapped a gift with fabric? It offers a huge advantage in that the tape won’t rip the fabric like it does the paper. Instead of custom cutting the fabric to your gift, you can leave the fabric larger and wrap it around twice. Then it will still be big enough to use on another larger gift.

Homemade Gift Bags

Go a step further and make your own gift bags. My sister made enough over a few years that we all have some of these colorful bags, complete with matching ribbon.

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Traditional gift bags can be reused many times before they wear out. I try to keep all the Christmas gift bags with the Christmas paper. Similarly, I keep gift bags for any other holidays with my all occasion paper. That way I just have to pull out one of the boxes.

I do think about who I’m giving particular gift bags to. Those pretty fabric bags my sister made stay within the family. I know not all families reuse to the extent we do and I would hate for a gift recipient to just toss a handmade fabric bag!

My Sustainable Gift Wrapping Collection

My collection of paper, bows, etc has grown over the years! This is a good year to cull what’s looking a bit shabby. Sadly, bows go in the trash, as do most gift bags.

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Keeping wrapping supplies organized goes a long way to using it efficiently. That’s something I’m still working on! I think it will all work better if I use easily labeled, easily accessible containers like a set of drawers or an old dresser or cabinet.

For now I have boxes and bags stacked on top of each other in a closet. My “system” is very frugal, but materials tend to accumulate until I can put stray pieces away.

You might notice the wrapping paper tubes look a little rough around the edges. I considered trimming them to make them look better for the picture. But then those new edges would start to get beaten up. So the rumpled edges stay, to protect what’s inside.

Bows really require a container that won’t let them get smashed or crumpled. The box I have works. The bag simply doesn’t. After celebrating January birthdays, I’ll pick the best bows and only keep what fits in one box.

Do you save wrapping supplies? Have you tried alternative wrapping materials? Please share your experience below!

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