Recycling Holiday Paper
December 28, 2011, By Michael O. Varhola 0 comments
One of the byproducts of the holiday season is lots of waste in the form of wrapping paper, gift boxes, greeting cards and the like, most of which ultimately gets bagged up and thrown out with the trash. It's a shame to simply throw away such a great volume of even apparently useless material, and there are better ways to dispose of or make use of such festive detritus—some of which can save you money or keep children occupied, both laudable goals.
Reuse It
If they are in good shape and you have an upper-shelf closet or some other place where you can store them, gift bags, tissue paper, clothing boxes from department stores and even large sheets of carefully removed gift wrap can be used again. Not only can reusing it save you money when the next holiday comes around, it can also be very convenient to have these materials on hand when you need them. Reusing wrapping paper, of course, is predicated on children not shredding it when opening their gifts, but wanton destruction does not necessarily have to be part of the fun of Christmas.
Recycle It
If you live in a community that offers recycling, at the very least you should make a point of gathering up all the gift paper, boxes and cards you're not planning to keep and getting rid of it this way rather than by putting it in the trash. (As an aside, if you think recycling is not available in your community, check the local county or municipal website; a county recycling truck comes once a week to a parking lot near where I live, for example, but many of my neighbors are completely unaware of this when I tell them about it.)
NEXT: Repurpose it.
