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Viewing 12 Tips: How you can be Eco-Friendly when You Wrap Gifts12 Tips: How you can be Eco-Friendly when You Wrap Gifts
By Kathy Steinemann
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Protecting the environment and reducing global warming is the task of everyone on Earth. Did you know that gift-wrapping can be harmful to the environment? This article explains, and gives you a dozen tips to avoid the adverse eco-effects of gifting. Most people give presents several times a year for special occasions like birthdays, anniversaries, religious holidays, etc. How often do you purchase gift-wrap that ultimately ends up in the trash? Add to that the plastic packaging and/or cardboard tubing, and you will quickly see how gift-wrapping can turn into an ecological mini-disaster. We must protect the limited resources of our Earth. The tips in this article will help you to become a more eco-friendly gift-wrapper. 1. Instead of purchasing gift boxes, use household items like paper towel tubes, coffee or cookie tins, flowerpots, milk cartons, or CD cases. 2. Do not purchase gift-wrap. Instead, save flyers or colored pages (like the comics) from the newspaper and use them to wrap all but the largest gifts. 3. Another material that you can use for gift-wrapping is a towel. Purchase a patterned towel that matches the interests of your gift recipient. 4. Brown paper bags turned inside out and stamped with 'potato stamps' make great gift-wrap. You can construct potato stamps by carving embossed shapes onto the flat edges of halved potatoes and coating the shapes with eco-friendly water-based paints or food coloring. Stamp your designs onto the paper. Afterwards, you can add the potatoes to your compost bin. 5. Another decorating technique: cut shapes out of paper or use items like autumn leaves and spread over black-and-white newspaper pages or brown paper bags. With an old toothbrush, a piece of screen, and food-safe paints or food coloring, you can create a spatter-paint design. Let it dry, and then reuse the shapes with a different color. Search the net for 'spatter painting' if you need specific instructions. 6. Use food-safe glue or biodegradable tape instead of regular transparent tape, masking tape, etc. 7. You can make pseudo-ribbon out of contrasting colors of newspaper or bias-cut strips from clothing that is unsuitable for donating to the local thrift store. 8. You can plait, crochet, or knit remnants of 100% wool yarn or 100% crochet cotton into eco-friendly ribbon. 9. Try crocheting or tatting mini snowflakes from 100% crochet cotton for gift-wrap decorations. The receiver can use them for window and wall treatments or Christmas tree ornaments. 10. Instead of gift cards, glue old CDs or DVDs together, shiny side out. Decorate them with permanent markers, pictures cut out of magazines, old buttons, or any suitable items headed for the trash. 11. You can cut colored egg cartons into interesting shapes and glue them onto newspaper-wrapped gifts. 12. To mail gifts - take old wrapping paper that you have saved, turn the unprinted side out, and use it as outer wrap for anything that you must send through the postal system. With each gift, include a little note about why you wrapped the gift in this unique manner, and ask your recipient to recycle your creation (unless you have wrapped the gift in a towel). Maybe you can win some new converts! (c) Copyright Kathy Steinemann: This article is free to publish only if this copyright notice, the byline, and the author's note below (with active links) are included. About the Author: There are more articles about environmental concerns at 1st Rate Articles. Kathy writes articles for several websites, including 111 Travel Directory and A Language Guide. She also enjoys writing German-English poems and stories in parallel translation. Article Source: 1st Rate Articles - http://1stRateArticles.com |
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