Many of us capitalize on Black Friday sales as a way to shop for the holidays. But what happens when you've ordered everything off those wish lists? It's time to break out the gift wrapping.
But year after year, picking up after wrapping presents is a major pain. And responsibly discarding the paper? That's an even bigger struggle.
The U.S. produces 4.6 million pounds of wrapping paper each year, chopping down 3 billion trees to pull off such a tall order. Worse, most gift wrap on the market today isn't recyclable, even though it's usually paper-based. That's because of embellishments like glitter or foil, which are typically made from plastic.
As a result, half of the 4.6 million pounds of wrapping paper produced in the U.S. annually gets sent to a landfill.
But this wasteful gift wrap isn't the only option. Recycled wrapping paper presents a major alternative with plenty of benefits.
For one, many brands of recycled wrapping paper come in bulk orders, which can help cut down on costs. For example, one brand of recyclable wrapping paper, Wrappily, uses neighborhood newspaper printers to create fun and festive soy-based ink prints on newsprint paper.
Newsprint paper is made of recycled paper and sawdust from lumber mills, meaning it reuses and repurposes resources that would otherwise be destined for landfills.
And with Wrappily's double-sided wraps, you can get multiple uses from the paper before you recycle it.
In 2018, the U.S. EPA reported that 68.2% of paper and paperboard were recycled — this is a pretty high recycling rate, especially compared to the abysmal estimated 5% recycling rate for plastic.This high recycling rate means that when you recycle paper — such as recyclable wrapping paper — it's more likely to get turned into a new product. According to Wrappily, one ton of recycled newsprint saves 15 trees, 71 gallons of oil, 601 kilowatts of electricity, and 7,000 gallons of water.
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