No-Waste Gift-Giving and Gift-Wrapping Ideas

• No-Waste Gift-Giving Ideas
• No-Waste Gift-Wrapping Ideas
• More Wrapping, Packaging Waste Reduction Ideas

No-Waste Gift-Giving Ideas

Here are a few ideas and suggestions on how to have a wonderful, gift-giving holiday season and still be earth friendly.

• Not sure what to get someone? How about a gift certificate? That way, you know the gift will be kept.
• Make gifts. Everyone appreciates a home-cooked meal or baked goodies.
• Consider nonmaterial gifts. Tickets to a sporting event, movie, play, or concert are a real treat! Or make a charitable donation in someone's name.
• When you go shopping, bring your own reusable bags.
• Think durable! Consider how long an item will last before you make a purchase. Often, a cheaper item will wear out long before its more durable equivalent.
• And, always remember to look for items made with recycled content.

No-Waste Gift-Wrapping Ideas

• Wrap the gift in a drawstring bag and use an inexpensive luggage tag for the gift tag.
• Decorate oversized gifts with just a bow that can be used again.
• Put toy animals in a cowboy hat and wrap a cowboy scarf around it.
• Use a jewelry box for some flea market 'jewels.'
• Use a knit hat to wrap a small gift. Close the hat with a barrette or a decorative hat pin.
• Games or toys for a child can go in a new backpack designed pillow case.
• For a person who is handy, wrap a gift in a tool box.
• Put blouses and other gifts in decorative hat boxes and tie with a hair ribbon.
• For the sewing enthusiast, wrap a gift in a fabric remnant and tie it with a piece of lace or ribbon.
• Any kitchen gift can be wrapped in a colorful dish towel. Kitchen utensils can pop out of an oven mitt.
• Place home-baked cookies in a reusable tin box, a kitchen container, or a decorated oatmeal box.
• Use a colorful tablecloth to wrap dishes or dining room gifts.
• For a reader, wrap a book in a reusable canvas shopping sack.
• Wrap tools for a gardener in the pocket of an apron, planter, or bucket.
• Hang earrings, bracelets, or necklaces right on the Christmas tree, or put them inside or around an open ornament.
• Search the flea market, garage sales, and thrift stores for interesting old boxes that can be used as decorative packages.
• Search the attic for old family photos and mementos and give them to your favorite relative wrapped in grandma's old hat and a lace curtain.
• Salvation Army and Goodwill thrift shops often have good prices on leftover holiday wrapping paper.
• Purchase gift bags from your local dollar stores and reuse them each year.
• Used, but attractive, gift baskets are often offered at local thrift shops.
• Christmas-theme fabric, with Velcro strips attached, can become reusable holiday wrap.

More Waste Reduction with Wrapping, Packaging, Greeting Cards

• Creative wrapping paper substitutes include used blueprint paper, the Sunday comics, or even the sports section for a sports enthusiast. Design your own wrapping paper using paper shopping bags: decorate them with paints, crayons, or markers.
• Replace tissue paper with old lace or strips of paper shopping bags or used gift wrap.
• If you use traditional gift wrapping, always buy recycled-content wrapping paper. If your store doesn't sell recycled-content wrapping paper, ask the manager to order it in the future.
• If you send holiday cards, buy recycled-content cards and envelopes. Or make your own cards out of last year's cards and the wrapping paper you saved.
• Make gift tags from last year's holiday cards.
• Shipping a gift? Reuse the foam peanuts from another package, or use unbuttered popcorn for packing.
 
• Create a child's play kit from whatnots found around the house.
  • Glue used comic book pictures, or playing cards from an incomplete deck to an old box.
  • Fill the box with basic creative equipment: scissors, glue, tape, crayons, and colorful paper scraps.
  • Search the house for unmatched treasures: bent cookie cutters, old game tokens, fabric scraps, ribbon, yarn, and so on.
  • Use leftover dry-cleaner cardboard to cut out the various parts of a house, (walls, roof, chimney, etc.). The child can assemble the house and decorate it with the materials in the box.
• And don't forget to look for toys, books, and other products made from recycled materials!
• If you have Internet access, consider sending electronic Christmas cards this year.

Holiday Home Page

Last updated: November 25, 2008

California Integrated Waste Management Board, http://www.ciwmb.ca.gov
Public Affairs Office, opa@ciwmb.ca.gov (916) 341-6300