{"id":3701,"date":"2020-12-24T11:45:30","date_gmt":"2020-12-24T11:45:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/?p=143102"},"modified":"2020-12-24T11:45:30","modified_gmt":"2020-12-24T11:45:30","slug":"is-wrapping-paper-wasteful-or-is-it-the-least-of-our-problems","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/2020\/12\/24\/is-wrapping-paper-wasteful-or-is-it-the-least-of-our-problems\/","title":{"rendered":"Is wrapping paper wasteful, or is it the least of our problems?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"aside-logo aside-logo--right aside-logo--ask-umbra\"><a href=\"https:\/\/grist.org\/ask-umbra\/\"><img width=\"150\" src=\"https:\/\/grist.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/04\/ask-umbra-twitter2.jpg?w=150&amp;h=0&amp;crop=1\" class=\"category-logo category-logo--ask-umbra\" alt loading=\"lazy\" \/><\/a><\/aside>\n<p><span class=\"qa\">Q.<\/span><strong>Dear Umbra,<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>My family compulsively reuses wrapping paper, to the point that I think we\u2019ve got some from decades ago. What is wrapping paper made from, how scary is it, and most importantly, should everyone become hoarders like my family?<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>\u2014 Giving In Family That Expects Reuse<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><span class=\"qa\">A.<\/span>Dear GIFTER,<\/p>\n<p>Present wrapping is sort of the apotheosis of an environmentalist nightmare. You\u2019re taking a gift (symbol of consumerism!) and dressing it up in shiny paper and bows and frills (single-use products!) that will be immediately discarded (landfill waste!). This is probably why environmentalists have long been considered \u201cno fun.\u201d Because wrapping \u2014 and, perhaps more accurately, unwrapping \u2014 presents is fun! It\u2019s an experience replete with surprise, beauty, generosity, and other good stuff.<\/p>\n<p>There are more environmentally sound ways to do it, of course. As you already do, keeping and reusing wrapping paper and ribbon and gift bags over and over again, for years and years, is an admirable option. Avoid metallic and glittery paper, because those contain plastic or aluminium that prevent them from being recycled with paper products and therefore go straight to the landfill. (And try to strip excess tape and sticky tags and whatnot from the paper before you recycle it, but a couple of stray pieces probably won\u2019t hurt.) Fabric ribbon is preferable over the plastic curl-able kind, because you can more easily keep and reuse it. The more hardcore enviro-heads use brown kraft paper, which is eminently recyclable, compostable, <em>and<\/em> reusable, and you can draw stuff on it, stick some pine sprigs in the ribbon, go wild!<\/p>\n<p>As to how scary wrapping paper is, let\u2019s break things down quantitatively. A popular figure that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.neefusa.org\/holiday-waste\">flies<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/money.cnn.com\/2010\/12\/16\/news\/economy\/holiday_trash\/index.htm\">around<\/a> is that the average American household\u2019s waste increases by 25 percent between Thanksgiving and New Year\u2019s, but that\u2019s not specific to gift paraphernalia.<\/p>\n<p>Paper and paperboard waste make up about 14 percent of all municipal solid waste \u2014 an umbrella category that includes trash, recycling, composting, and other kinds of refuse \u2014 <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/facts-and-figures-about-materials-waste-and-recycling\/containers-and-packaging-product-specific-data#PaperandPaperboardC&amp;P\">according to the Environmental Protection Agency<\/a>, and we can probably assume that percentage is higher over the winter holidays. But paper products are easier and less energy-intensive to recycle than the dread plastic and metal items, so a relatively low percentage of paper \u2014 around 15 percent \u2014 ends up decomposing in landfills.<\/p>\n<p>Paper products look even better compared to other kinds of holiday waste. <a href=\"https:\/\/grist.org\/ask-umbra\/how-can-i-avoid-wasting-food-during-quarantine\/\">Food waste<\/a> \u2014 all those stale holiday cookies, unsolicited <a href=\"https:\/\/grist.org\/food\/for-your-consideration-fruitcake\/\">fruitcake<\/a>, leftovers from the elaborate Christmas meal that you made for two people \u2014 is a far greater scourge; about two-thirds of all residential food waste <a href=\"https:\/\/www.epa.gov\/sites\/production\/files\/2020-11\/documents\/2018_wasted_food_report.pdf\">goes straight to the landfill<\/a>, where it breaks down into harmful greenhouse gases like methane. Online shopping for 2020\u2019s holiday season is up by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/business\/2020\/12\/15\/postal-service-holiday-packages-delays\/\"><em>33 percent<\/em><\/a> over last year, which means 33 percent more of all that plastic packaging that\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/grist.org\/article\/help-i-dont-know-how-to-recycle-anymore\/\">most likely not recyclable<\/a>, to say nothing of the emissions from the ships, planes, and trucks that move all that stuff around.<\/p>\n<p>Is there anything <em>wrong<\/em> with your hoarding habits? No, of course not. It is never wrong to reuse something as benign as wrapping paper as much as you can or want to. When I talked to Erin Gagnon, a retail sales manager for the West Coast waste management company Recology, about your family\u2019s practice, she said, \u201cI love it, I love it, I love it.\u201d (Three times! She really did!) \u201cWe love that people are really thinking through the circular economy,\u201d referring to a system that minimizes waste and maximizes reuse.<\/p>\n<p>But the mantra of any environmentalist\u2019s life, as I\u2019ve said in various ways many times before, should be to not lose sight of bigger, systemic problems, such as the large slice of emissions that come from transportation and manufacturing. If your family members are wrapping 100 Amazon Prime-shipped items in 20-year-old paper, for example, there\u2019s a bit of cognitive dissonance there.<\/p>\n<p>The holidays are theoretically supposed to be about being thankful for the love and generosity in your life, giving what you can to others, and enjoying a lot of warmth and comfort. In practice, there\u2019s often an enormous amount of guilt over the whole rigmarole of gifts \u2014 what you paid for them, where they came from, how much they will be enjoyed \u2014 and often a healthy dose of depression and inadequacy. Given these existing pressures, I would suggest not holding yourself to absolute environmental purity in every aspect of your holidays.<\/p>\n<p>That said, it\u2019s not that hard to do eco-conscious gift wrapping, and I don\u2019t think it\u2019s an unreasonable burden for most people to make drawers of carefully preserved gift bags and ribbons and sheets of colorful paper dating back several presidential administrations a part of their annual holiday tradition. But I will say it probably matters more, both in a planetary and emotional sense, what\u2019s underneath the paper.<\/p>\n<p>Glitteringly,<\/p>\n<p>Umbra<\/p>\n<aside id=\"aside-437210\" class=\"aside aside--437210 aside--fy21-winter-appeal-bottom-of-post-ask aside--post_after aside--membership\" data-hide-donor data-hide-subscriber>\n<\/aside>\n\n<p class=\"syndicated-attribution\">This post was originally published on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.radiofree.org\/2020\/12\/24\/is-wrapping-paper-wasteful-or-is-it-the-least-of-our-problems\/\">Radio Free<\/a>. <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Q.Dear Umbra, My family compulsively reuses wrapping paper, to the point that I think we\u2019ve got some from decades ago. What is wrapping paper made from, how scary\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":125,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[395,4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/125"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3701"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3702,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3701\/revisions\/3702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radiofree.asia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}