Category Archives: Conservation

Alternatives to wrapping paper

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gifts

In our house we celebrate both Christmas and Chanukah. That is a whole lot of gift giving, which can mean a whole lot of gift wrapping. It bums me out each year to see the clear garbage bags filled with holiday wrapping paper. This year I’ve been trying to reduce the amount of paper we use to wrap gifts. For Chanukah, we give one or two gifts a night. I’ve been putting them unwrapped inside a pretty gift bag. Lindsay doesn’t seem to notice or care that they aren’t wrapped. She’s just interested in what’s inside the bag. In fact she saw the bag today and asked why there was nothing in the Chanukah bag (her comforter wouldn’t fit in it).

Neil asked what I planned to do with the presents for Christmas. The gift bag obviously won’t work, so I’ve been looking at ideas online for gift wrap alternatives. Here’s what I found so far. Please feel free to add suggestions.

  1. Use fabric to wrap the gifts. I’ve gotten some fabric bags over the years when I’ve purchased something at a fancy shop. I always hang onto them because it just seems a waste to throw them out. (I’m convinced that I have a form of mental illness when it comes to throwing things out, but that’s a whole other post). I think putting some of the gifts in these bags would be pretty. If I had more time, I would even consider sewing a few bags from all the bits of fabric I have.
  2. Use the funny papers to wrap kids presents. If your paper has a comic section, this can be a nice option.
  3. Old calendars can be cut up and used to wrap smaller gifts.
  4. Wallpaper
  5. Old maps. NYC subway maps are free
  6. Kid’s artwork. If you don’t want to use their drawings, have them decorate paper grocery bags with stickers, drawings, glitter, etc.
  7. Pillow cases from mis-matched sets of sheets

Here are some factoids that might give you some more incentive. I pulled them off the California government website.

  • An estimated 2.6 billion holiday cards are sold each year in the United States, enough to fill a football field 10 stories high.
  • More household waste is produced between Thanksgiving and New Year’s than any other time of the year–about six million tons of added waste nationwide.
  • Half of the paper consumed in the U.S. every year is used to wrap and decorate consumer products.
  • About 40 percent of all battery sales occur during the holiday season. Consider purchasing rechargeable batteries instead of single-use household batteries. In 2006 alone, more than 40 billion single-use batteries were sold worldwide.
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    Hang It Out to Dry

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    Today’s tip is about saving some energy and energy dollars by hanging your clothes up to dry. Clothes dryers are one of the biggest energy suckers in the home. A typical dryer can use somewhere between 1800-5000 watts, which is about 2-3 times more than a dishwasher, or vacuum cleaner. You can figure out how much energy your home appliances are using here.

    Laundry that has dried outside has a wonderful fresh smell you never get with the dryer. But it isn’t always practical or possible to hang your clothes outside. I have a very short clothes line outside, so I choose the heaviest items to hang out there. You know the towels or the mattress pads that tumble endlessly in the dryer? They dry in almost the same time outside and save a bundle of energy that way. Sometimes the towels can dry a little stiff, but you can toss them in the dryer for a couple of minutes to soften them up.

    IMG_5541

    If you don’t have outdoor space, you can get a bit creative in where to hang your laundry. Before buying a house, my sister used to have a line outside her apartment window. I often hang jeans up on our baby gates. In our laundry room (which used to be our darkroom when I first moved into this apartment) I hang a lot of shirts and other items up to dry. The fabric lasts a whole lot longer than if it was run through the hot dryer and it dries overnight without a care or practically a wrinkle. Some people hang lingerie to dry on their shower curtain rod.

    Get creative! The less clothing that goes in the dryer, the less energy you will be using. Your clothes will last longer, so it’s a win-win situation.

    Check out my sister’s insanely pretty clotheslines!

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    Doing Your Part w/out Getting Overwhelmed

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    shattered-rock

    I was just talking with a friend about trying to do the best you can (recycling, donating to charity, buying from farmer’s markets, etc.) and we both expressed how easy it is to be discouraged that we can’t/don’t do more. I look at our planet and can get overwhelmed by how we’ve managed to mess it up so badly. It doesn’t seem possible that we can do enough things to fix it up. One can try to be a perfect citizen of the Earth, but it’s nigh impossible, which is what leads to discouragement and giving up.

    That’s the negative way of seeing the situation. However, on a positive note, we’ve seen many examples of how one small effort can lead to a bigger outcome. The ripple effect. Rather than try to be perfect in every way, I’m suggesting we choose the causes we feel the most strongly about and think about what we can do in those areas. Human rights, animal rights, food justice, saving the environment (this one should probably be broken down into smaller pieces like protecting animal habitats, and clean air and water), global warming, etc.

    Working in one category overlaps into other areas as well. You can decide that you want to eat less meat or no meat because meat production is very polluting. That’s also pretty darn nice for the animals, so you get two good deeds for the price of one.

    I’m going to post some things I currently do and some things I’m going to do to keep me on track and hopefully inspire you. If anyone can think of suggestions and/or a nice name for a weekly post title please feel free to share.

    ps. The photo is of a shattered rock that I came across up in Woodstock, NY. It was just sitting on the ground without anything else pushing against it. I thought it was interesting that something as strong as a rock could just shatter like that. It’s my attempt at a metaphor. Don’t stress out. Even the strongest of us is still fragile.

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