It’s the holiday season! A time of the year when millions exchange gits wrapped in shiny wrapping papers and bows —but at what cost is that to the environment? Turns out, there are many ways to have an eco-friendly mind when gifting this holiday season. Here's a few helpful tips.
After gifts are opened, you might be asking yourself, do I throw these away?
Reuse is the key
Bob Sly with local nonprofit organization Zero Waste San Diego says, consider this:
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“The big thing about zero waste is not really recycling. Reusing things is really a better way than recycling it, than using a single-waste product,” Sly said.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, glitter, foil, and ribbons can’t typically be recycled. Many San Diegans might be reluctant to re-gift, but this time of year, regifting the bags, the bows — the wrapping paper, even – is a good thing.
“So if you reuse your wrapping paper and your bows and your ribbons and all the things you use to wrap gifts with, you can have a really super cool eclectic collection of all those things,” Sly said.
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Sly says to save your gift wrapping so you can use it next year, including gift bags, bows, tissue paper, wrapping paper, packing paper from shipped packages, and newspaper.
“If you really want to recycle your wrapping paper, go with stuff that’s just paper,” Sly said.
He acknowledges that young children tend to haphazardly rip through wrapping paper on Christmas morning, so he recommends giving them the paper gift wrap so it can be recycled. Stay away from buying the stuff that has glitter, is metallic, shiny or has velvety flocking on it.
“If you know you’re going to be wrapping things for kids, and they’re going to tear it up, and rip it up, make sure the wrapping is really paper, not this shiny stuff,” Sly said.
Tape enters the eco-friendly game
Sharing a zero-waste mindset is Ying Liu, founder of Blue Lake ECOLIFE. She’s reimaging a key player in gift wrap: Tape!
“What bothers me was, at the end of the day, once the tape is used up, the dispenser is also a piece of plastic,” Liu said.
It inspired Liu to create a dispenser with no plastic.
“We use a cellulose tape that’s made of plant fiber and also there’s a dispenser made of fiber, so the whole thing is basically disposable with paper,” Liu said.
It’s her way of addressing what the Department of State Office of Environmental Quality calls a global crisis when it comes to plastic pollution.
”Refuse, reuse, recycle,” Liu said. It's a way to give back to the environment this holiday season.
“Without changing the way you think about it, you’re not going to change your behavior,” Sly said.
