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Hello Everyone! Is anyone in the Christmas Spirit yet?! I am slowly getting there as I start to check off gifts from my list. One of my favorite things about Christmas is taking my time to find the perfect gifts for my family and friends 🙂 But this year I am trying a more eco-friendly Christmas approach.

This year, I am encouraging everyone I can to reuse, recycle, and use eco-friendly wrapping products this holiday season!

Here are the Facts:

• Most cities do not allow wrapping paper to be recycled in your curbside bins. Do a google search to double-check if your city does. Wrapping “paper” is usually filled with dyes and plastics that make this “paper” unable to be recycled.
• If your city does recycle gift wrap, it must be plain paper – no glitter or foils.
• Tissue paper, ribbons, and bows are never allowed in recycle bins
• Americans produce an additional 5 million tons of waste during the holidays (four million of the 5 million tons consisting of wrapping paper and shopping bags). (Source: Rubicon)
• If every American family wrapped just 3 presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields. (Source: Stanford University)
• If we assume it takes 15 trees to make 1 ton of wrapping paper, this amounts to 30 million trees cut down JUST TO WRAP GIFTS! (Source: TreeHugger)
• All of that plastic film, bubble wrap, and packaging that comes with your online purchases can not be recycled in your curbside bin. BUT find a local drop off location here! (Most Jewel Grocery Stores or Targets have them).

How to Have an Eco-Friendly Christmas:

-This year I suggested to my friends and family that we all use reusable fabric bags to wrap our gifts for each other! I found this awesome set on Amazon that comes with multiple sizes for all your gifting needs. You can get one big “Santa bag” to put several gifts in or smaller ones for each individual gift. I also purchased a few from Michaels (great sales right now!!). If you are like me and are a little “wrapping challenged”, you will love these bags. They are honestly so much easier and time-saving than dealing with wrapping paper, tape, ribbon, bows, tissue paper, and all that junk. Plus, they look super cute and come in multiple different colors/styles.

-I know sometimes you just want to throw an item in a box and wrap it up. For this, I purchased some rolls of plain kraft paper that is 100% recyclable! I actually love the look of presents wrapped in this anyways. It’s so natural and earthy as compared to all that tacky, colorful, printed stuff. You can always decorate it by using string, pinecones, or even draw right on the paper with markers if you are artistic. I like to write with a sharpie right on the present who the gift is for to eliminate the need for a gift tag. Just be careful because some paints or markers with harmful chemicals can make the paper unable to be recycled.

-To eliminate gift bags altogether, save all those cardboard boxes from your online shopping purchases! You can put your gift right in the box and wrap the box with kraft paper. So easy!

-If you are given any gift bags, bows or ribbons make sure to save them because they can be reused year after year.

You may be thinking…

but eco-friendly wrapping products are more expensive than traditional gift wrap. While that may be true short term, if you are exchanging gifts between the same family and friends each year, you can reuse the same packaging making this a one time purchase.

According to research from Hallmark, Americans as a whole, spend approximately $3.2 billion a year on wrapping paper. (Source: U.S. News) Yikes!

More ways to be eco-friendly this holiday season:

• Use newspaper, old maps, fabric scraps, cloth tote bags, or other materials for wrapping. Get creative!
• Recycle past Christmas cards by cutting the bottom flap off and writing on the blank side to make a gift tag.
• Give the gift of an experience (concerts, movie tickets, Groupons) or service (car wash, massage) instead of a toy or product that may end up in the trash a few years from now.
• Send e-cards or e-gift cards.
• Select Amazon’s Frustration-Free Packaging option to reduce packaging waste.
• Use LED Christmas lights that use 80% energy compared to traditional lights.

Will you be participating in Eco-Friendly Christmas this year? Let me know in the comments!