15 Easy Eco-friendly Gift Wrapping Ideas

In this post you will learn about 15 easy and Eco-friendly gift wrapping ideas.

The festive season has begun and everyone is buying presents. What we also are buying is gift wrapping paper. Each year the paper is torn from the presents and thrown away, so we need to buy new ones to wrap the next presents in. It is lovely to gift a really pretty looking present, but lets be honest, gift wrapping paper is pretty wasteful. If you think twice about it, we are actually spending money on something that is going to be torn of and thrown away anyways (and we are all okay with it). Why have we become such a throw away society?

The purpose of gift wrapping paper is to conceal the present. In the olden days it was enough to wrap the presents with basic brown paper and string. But nowadays we use gift wrapping paper in various colors, prints with glitter or metallic details. Unfortunately, all that dye and glitter is not Eco-friendly. But of course you still want to make your present look lovely and neat! Luckily, you can wrap your present beautifully without using traditional wrapping paper.

In this blog post I will tell you about 15 easy, original and Eco-friendly gift wrapping ideas that you can use instead of traditional gift wrapping paper! Not only do they look beautiful and carefully thought through, but they also cost way less and some of them are even completely free.
Let’s get into them!

Why Gift Wrapping paper isn’t Eco friendly

Christmas is one of the most wasteful times of the year. Because during the Christmas holiday season we produce 30% more waste than the rest of the year! Left over food, packaging, Christmas trees, string lights, decorations and also a lot of gift wrapping paper is mindlessly tossed away.

✧ Read: 19 Natural Christmas Decorations For A Beautiful Home

In 2016, 7 billion dollars was spent on gift wrapping in the USA only according to Sundale Research, which is equivalent to 2000 tons of gift wrapping paper tossed away, and half of it ends up in landfill. In 2017 it was estimated that 108 million rolls of wrapping paper was thrown away after Christmas in the UK only.

Not only is traditional wrapping paper not sustainable, it is not good for your wallet either (it’s never good for your wallet to buy single use items). It was estimated that the global market value of gift wrapping products was over 15 billion US dollars in 2018, and it’s only increasing. This is all money that is spent on single use gift wrapping products, only to be thrown away after the presents are opened. And one of the worst things is that the majority of it isn’t even recyclable.

But isn’t gift wrapping paper just paper? So why can’t it be recycled? Well here’s the thing. Traditional gift wrapping paper is not only paper. Therefor it is rarely recyclable. This is because it is often lined with plastic, contains a lot of dye, metallic details and glitter that makes the whole thing unrecyclable. It is simply too difficult to retract the fibres from the polluted paper. This means that it mostly ends up in landfills or gets incinerated, both polluting the earth in a way.

Also the sticky tape and ribbons used when decorating presents, are made out of plastic. And plastic never biodegrades and will break up into a million little pieces pollution the earth.

✧ Read:  27 Ways to Reduce your Plastic Waste.

15 Eco-friendly Gift Wrapping Ideas

Here are 15 Eco-friendly gift wrapping ideas that you can use for any occasion. Whether it is for Christmas, birthdays or any other day where you would like to give someone a gift!

1. Reuse old wrapping paper & gift bags.

Reusing old wrapping paper or gift bags from earlier gifts you have received is I would say the easiest Eco-friendly gift wrapping idea. The only effort it takes from you is to carefully open presents when you receive them, so you can save the wrapping paper and reuse it later. By doing this you get quite a nice collection of different gift wrapping papers that you can use for future presents! Also safe the strings and ribbons, so you can decorate your presents with it. This option is also totally free.

2. Brown paper.

Brown paper is a great alternative for normal wrapping paper. It is recyclable and can also be composted because it doesn’t contain dye or glitter that other wrapping paper contains. With brown paper you can make really beautiful and traditional looking presents (”brown paper packages tied up with strings…” ;)! ). You can make the brown presents look more festive by adding fabric lace in a beautiful color, draw on it or add a nice decoration like red berries or a little spruce branch. You can buy brown paper from the craft or office supply store.

3. Newspaper.

Wrapping your gifts with newspaper is another Eco-friendly gift wrapping idea! This is a really easy option if you have old newspaper lying around in the house. Not only is this one free, but you’ll also end up with unique looking presents! Somehow the black on white text wrapped around a box looks really artsy. You can make it look even better by adding a small red detail, like a red ribbon or berries as decoration. As newspapers furthermore are recyclable, it makes the ultimate Eco-friendly wrapping paper.

4. Pages from old books.

If you have an old book lying around that you do not intend on reading ever again, you could use the pages as Eco-friendly gift wrapping paper! Separate the pages from the cover and use them to wrap the present. This method works great for smaller presents. But if you want to use it for bigger presents too, you can tape the pages together with biodegradable tape until it’s big enough to wrap around. Another creative and Eco-friendly idea is to make gift tags from old book pages. This option is totally free but requires some extra cutting and crafting.

5. Sheet music or road maps.

Not everyone has a musician in the house, but if you do you can use old sheet paper as a super unique gift wrapping paper! It looks similar to newspaper with the black on white printing and therefor also looks great with a red detail added too it. If you don’t have sheet music, another Eco-friendly gift wrapping idea is to use old road maps! Your present will look really unique and also colorful. Check your bookshelf for more ideas to use for gift wrapping that I may not have listen here (like recipes, old drawing etc.) This option is also totally free and helps you make use of things you already have.

6. Cardboard boxes.

You can use old cardboard boxes for Eco-friendly gift wrapping. Maybe you have some laying around after ordering stuff online or maybe you have some old shoe boxes. If you don’t, you could even use empty food boxes, like cereal boxes or teabag boxes for example. If the outside of the cardboard box looks ugly, you can wrap it with another Eco-friendly alternative, like newspaper or brown paper. Your oddly shaped present will now look great packed into a rectangular box!

7. Fabric.

A great and really easy Eco-friendly gift wrapping idea is using fabric. You may have a nice piece of old fabric somewhere, like cloths or old clothes, that you can repurpose as an original gift wrap! There are various videos on YouTube on how to wrap a present beautifully with fabric. You could also make fabric gift bags from the fabric you got laying around. It is really nice to gift the fabric bag along with your present, as they can be used again by the receiver or repurposed for something else.

8. Toilet paper rolls.

If you have a small present that fits into a toilet paper roll, then it can become a really cute little present box! You can decorate the roll and then just fold the sides inward, so it covers the opening. Then wrap it with a ribbon and voila! You have a small Eco-friendly present box. It is really simple, free and upcycles something you would’ve had no use for otherwise, which makes it a great Eco-friendly gift wrapping idea.

9. Glass jars.

Another easy Eco-friendly gift wrap idea is to repurpose old glass jars. I find this alternative great if you gift away things you can eat, like home baked goods or candy. Because it looks really cute and appetizing when stored in a glass jar! Not only is this alternative zero waste but you’ll also be gifting away something that the receiver can reuse. Glass jars always come in handy in the kitchen!

10. Brown paper bags.

Instead of buying a gift bag that isn’t recyclable, you can use brown paper bags! They are recyclable, compostable and you can also decorate them yourself. Decorate them with colorful ribbons or twine, and you have a super easy and rustic looking present. If you are feeling creative you can also draw or paint something on the front, use a stamp or write a handwritten message. You can really get creative with this Eco-friendly gift wrapping idea

11. Scarves or old clothes.

Another easy Eco-friendly gift wrapping idea is to use scarves or handkerchiefs. You can use the Japanese gift wrapping technique called furoshiki, to wrap the fabric around the present in a really pretty and secure way so you won’t have to use anything else (tape or strings etc). This is a great way for reusing old scarves and handkerchiefs.The receiver can keep the fabric if they want to, but if they don’t you can take it back home for future use. You could also buy a new one and gift two presents in one!

12. Use Eco-friendly tape.

You may not have thought about this little detail, but the tape you typically use for presents is made out of plastic. This type of tape is not sustainable because it’s single use, made out of plastic and too small to be recycled. But no worries, there are of course great alternatives for plastic tape. You can for example use ribbons, lace, string or twine made from a natural material. But if you want to tape the paper together like with plastic tape, there are also a biodegradable versions out there made out of paper!

13. Use Eco-friendly ribbons.

Skip buying plastic ribbons and wrap your present with an Eco-friendly alternative! For example you can use strings, twine in various colors, fabric ribbons, paper ribbons or lace. Just make sure that it is made from a natural material and not from synthetic (which is plastic). Using these different types of ribbons will make your present look really unique! Fabric ribbons are also much easier to reuse as the keep beautiful longer than plastic ones. Another great Eco-friendly idea is to cut cloth ribbons from old clothes or fabric. Just cut strips out of the fabric, sew along the edges or leave them frayed!

14. Decorate your present with something natural.

To give your present that extra touch, you can decorate it with something natural! Instead of using a regular plastic bow, you can add a small branch, a cute twig, flowers, leaves, pine cones, herbs, cinnamon sticks or dried fruit! There are many options that are super aesthetic and Eco-friendly. If you are decorating a Christmas present, a really fun idea is to add a little decoration that the receiver can hang in their Christmas tree!

15. Use Eco-friendly labels.

Unfortunately the sticker labels you can put on presents aren’t Eco-friendly. They are often laminated with plastic and the sticky glue makes them unrecyclable. A great Eco-friendly alternative is using paper tags! You can either cut them from paper yourself and maybe decorate them, but you can also buy them in a store. I personally prefer a cute label attached to the present with twine, than a sticker that’s just slapped on there, as it looks much more thought through and taken care of.

Final thoughts: Reuse what you already own

Now you know that it’s possible to create stunning presents with Eco-friendly gift wrapping. They are often also really original and you can see that effort was put in to create a beautiful present. It’s so much more charming than buying a random wrapping paper and slap a plastic ribbon on there. And one of the best parts that it doesn’t cost much at all!

The most Eco-friendly thing you can do is to reuse what you already own.
Whether that is brown paper bags, road maps, newspaper, old clothes or saved gift wrapping paper from previous presents. The thing that you already own and can reuse as gift wrapping will be the most Eco-friendly choice for you!

If you don’t have any of the alternatives listed above, the next place to go is to thrift stores. There you can find original fabrics, papers, old maps or other stuff you could use for wrapping and decoration. It will be both cheaper for you, better for the planet and lead to more original gift wrappings!

It is great to be mindful during the holiday season when there is a lot of extra waste created.
I hope you learned something new and that you’ll have the most beautiful Eco-friendly presents to give this Christmas!

Merry Christmas!
Love, Bo.