Go Greener, Australia

Cards and gift-wrappings are an area where you can make a huge difference to your eco-friendly Christmas. The usual way is to buy rolls of Christmas paper, maybe ribbons and tags as well, to wrap all your gifts in, while sending out dozens of cards to all your friends, family and co-workers. By following the reduce-reuse-recycle mantra, you can really make this part of Christmas a lot greener.

Reduce

Does everyone you know need a card? I don’t send cards to people I’ll be seeing frequently over the period - I’m going to be celebrating with them anyway, they don’t need a card when I can give them a big hug instead. I make an effort to send cards to friends and family living in other cities, but I also try to email or call them too, so we can have a longer exchange than there’s room for in a card.

Do your gifts really need to be wrapped? Some do, obviously, if they’re going to be sitting under a tree before being received, or you’re planning a surprise. But some gifts aren’t improved by wrapping. If it’s a very large gift, try hiding it somewhere and making a short treasure hunt for it instead of swathing it in rolls and rolls of paper. If you’re giving someone a plant, it probably looks best just as nature made it.

Reuse

Ok, so that you don’t think I’m turning into Scrooge here, there’s still a lot of cards and wrapping that you can’t reduce away. So what can you do?

My family is very good at re-using gift bags instead of wrapping paper. We tend to use them for the adults’ gifts, as the kids are more likely to peek to see what they’re getting! We started using them for birthdays, and saved them so that they now appear at Christmas as well. They come in all sizes and shapes, in lots of pretty patterns.

I’ve received gifts wrapped in newspaper, tied with red ribbon and looking great; I’ve also received gifts wrapped in the drawings my little cousins made at kindegarten - this is a great idea for doting relatives of your kids. I’ve also heard of people using large pages from calendars.

Alternatively, you can wrap a present in something that can be re-used in someone’s home, so that it becomes part of the gift: fabric is great for this, in the form of tea-towels, saris, sarongs, etc. Look at the Furoshiki (Japanese wrapping cloth) website for ways to wrap gifts with fabric.

Recycle

I’m not a fan of reusing cards that people have sent you, but you can buy cards made from recycled paper instead. Fund-raising cards from charities and non-profit organisations are more likely to use recycled paper than the bulk-packs of cards from supermarkets, but you never know so it’s best to check the small print on the back of the card. My favourites so far are the cards from the Red Cross I found a few years ago - made from recycled paper, with a recipe for Anzac biscuits on the back!

Re-using wrapping paper is a bit easier, especially if you’re a careful un-wrapper and the gift-giver isn’t too heavy on the sticky-tape. But careful hunting can sometimes find wrapping paper made from recycled materials - however, it’s harder to come by than recycled cards. If you’ve found some recycled card or paper, you can use them to make your own gift tags and avoid the mass-produced ones.

Other ways

Cards and wrapping are also an area where you can easily support fair-trade and community groups - Oxfam has a wide range (the surfing Santa above is just one example) and eco-friendly shops like Biome will also be able to help you out there.

And finally - tell your family and friends you don’t expect lots of cards or fancy wrappings on the gifts they give to you. Perhaps they’ve been wanting to cut back, but didn’t want to offend you by looking like they don’t care. Or maybe they’ve never thought about it before, but would be a bit relieved to have one item off their to-do list. Try telling the busiest person you know first, and give them some ideas from this article. If they get behind you, you’re more likely to convince other people in your group.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 11th, 2007 at 12:00 pm and is filed under celebrations, gifts, reduce-reuse-recycle. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.