Day 217 of our Green Year: No Wrapping Paper

Well, we are one month away from Christmas here at the Baird ranch, and since Christmas is a time of year where waste is very common and the environment often takes a backseat, we are going to be featuring things we do each month to give ourselves a green Christmas. We have already decided to greatly scale back gift giving, and only giving items that go along with our green decisions this year. However, today is not about the gifts, it is about the things they come in.

Everyone loves to rip the wrapping paper off gifts, but really that is an incredibly wasteful thing to do. You are wrapping something, just for someone to rip it off. Then that wrapping paper is generally thrown away.

For Our Green Year Christmas Edition....we are not using wrapping paper, but instead are using things we have around the house already. We may wrap the gifts in newspaper, which can then be used to help start fires in our fireplace. We may also wrap gifts in towels from the closet, or just put them in the reusable bags that we already have.

Wrapping paper is fun, but wasteful, so come December 25, everyone here will be unwrapping towels, opening reusable bags or ripping open newspaper.