According to an August report from Sundale Research, people in the U.S. spent a total of $12.7 billion on gift wrap, including wrapping paper, tissue paper and gift bags, in 2017. What a waste. This is stuff designed to be torn into shreds and tossed away in less than 60 seconds. It’s time to do away with wrapping paper, once and for all, and here’s why: Most wrapping paper is not recycled (and much of it can’t be), so it ends up in landfills.
A lot of the paper you might think is recyclable is actually lined with plastic, according to Going Zero Waste’s Kathryn Kellogg. Do you like decorations and artistic flourishes on your presents? Well, be selective. “If it has glitter or tape, it’s not recyclable,” Celia Ristow of Litterless told HuffPost. Glitter-encrusted paper is especially terrible for a couple of reasons. It can’t be recycled, for one. What’s more, glitter is made from teensy pieces of plastic that not only appear in your hair weeks later but also pollute the oceans, according to National Geographic. Marine animals often ingest these little specks, and over time, collect them in their stomachs, which can be fatal.
Even recyclable gift wrap will probably go to a landfill at the end of its life. Wrapping paper accounts for a tiny fraction of paper made from recycled material (while cardboard accounts for much more). Gift wrap is just not the ideal item to recycle: It’s thin and often full of ink, which makes it difficult to extract fibers from during recycling. “The ink diminishes the yield, it creates extra sludge when you process it, it requires additional chemicals,” according to Bill Moore, a paper recycling consultant based in Atlanta.
Giving up wrapping paper shouldn’t really be so tough. “There are things that seem really hard for us as a culture to give up,” said Ristow. “Packaged foods, we can avoid them, but we’re humans and sometimes we need to grab something on the go.” Wrapping paper, however “seems like it should be much easier to give up,” she argued. “To me, it’s a no-brainer to focus first on those things that are less dear and easier to replace.”
If you were all about doing away with single-use plastic straws in 2018, then it only makes sense for you to hop on the anti-wrapping paper bandwagon. It’d be both hypocritical and counterproductive not to. Straws at least serve a unique purpose. Some people with disabilities need them for drinking liquids; and while there are plenty of non-plastic straw substitutes out there, the options haven’t been perfected. Paper straws and similar biodegradable options may be too flimsy for people with limited jaw mobility, for example, NPR reported.
No one’s life is substantially better-served with wrapping paper. OK, it looks cheery and festive. But there are plenty of cheaper alternatives. “I still wrap most of my gifts in brown paper saved from packages,” said Ristow. “Despite our best efforts, we’re going to order stuff online and it’ll come with, at best, paper.”