With the holiday season in full swing, you may be looking for ways to celebrate more sustainably this year. Luckily, using paper is a simple, effective way to be a force for nature this holiday season – it comes from a plant-based, renewable resource that can be recycled up to seven times!
To help spark some creativity that is both fun and sustainable for the whole family, we created a new guide, “Celebrate the Holidays Sustainably with Paper,” that includes a list of tips with easy, practical ways to recycle and reuse paper and paper-based products to make your holidays even more sustainable this year.
- Turn a shipping box into a holiday recycling bin. Boxes from online delivery orders can be transformed into their own waste and recycling bins, giving a full life cycle to every paper piece involved in a gift order. Place them strategically around the house to encourage recycling.
- Send guests home with paper containers for the holidays. Paper to-go containers (and other products such as paper baking pans and paper cake molds) are all made from a renewable source.
- Celebrate reading, writing, puzzling and doodling. Gift versatile and sustainable paper-based gifts, like books, board games, puzzles or journals for friends and family.
- Turn cardboard boxes into game boards, a kid’s fort and more. Shipping appliance boxes can be a better present than the gifts that come inside when you turn them into hideaways, racing cars or fun, personalized DIY game boards.
- Protect gifts and ornaments with a soft cushion of paper. Cushion gifts that are fragile or being shipped by using festive paper-based filler options like tissue paper, crinkle paper or kraft paper.
- Upcycle all the way. Turn cardboard into thoughtful, sustainable gifts for friends and loved ones. Gifts can include an advent calendar, pet bed, drawer organizer, a wine holder and more.
- DIY decor and gifts. Make seed paper gift tags, paper ornaments or a collage of your homemade greeting cards from leftover gift wrapping to make your holiday feel even more personal and memorable.
- Use high-glose paper to make stylish gift wrap. Repurpose stacks of holiday catalogs and magazines with glossy paper into festive wrapping for gifts. Tape multiple pages together to make a gift stand out.
- Personalize gifts with handwritten gift certificates. This is a great replacement to emailing store gift cards or e-greeting cards.
Choosing and recycling paper is not only critical for reducing holiday waste, but it is also a vital component of keeping U.S. forests growing and healthy. More than half the U.S. forestland is owned and managed by about 11 million private forest owners, who supply 90% of the wood to make forest products.
