According to Hallmark research, the gift wrap industry accounts for approximately $3.2 billion a year in retail sales… that is a lot of gift wrap, bows and ribbon, which largely ends up in landfills.

Today, if you are headed out to a birthday party, wrapping something special for the upcoming holiday, or have any other gift-giving occasion today, consider some of these reusable gift wrapping ideas:

• Reuse gift bags you have received in the past
• Cut up a brown paper bag that you may have gotten from a grocery store, have the inside of the back face outward and decorate with cool painting, crayons, stencils, stamps or glueing on cutout decorations/dots/pictures, etc.  FUN IDEA – glue on cut out letters from glossy magazine paper of the person’s name
• Wrap in newsprint or magazine pages – you will look so hip being the eco-person ;)… Finish it off with a black ribbon for a polished look
• Use your children’s artwork/painted papers
• If you want to get fancy and use cloth, you may have an old scarf you don’t want or other cool clothing or linens that you could use.  Even sewing together some fabric scraps
• Tins that you received from others
• Part of the present may even be able to be used.  For instance, if there is a special blanket you are giving, or a bag, etc… get creative in making the gift into art without the wrap
• Old maps and wallpaper are fun to wrap
• If you must get new gift wrapping, buy recycled gift wrap and tissue paper.
• Be sure to use some fun ribbon that you saved from another occasion or packaging
• Skip the tape – raffia and hemp twine are also eco-friendly for ties if you do not have reusable ribbon available
• Consider no physical gift exchange at all and order a gift certificate on-line to be emailed

Coming on another day… eco-friendly cards (send an ecard!).