Did you have a family member who sat in the corner at a party or holiday event, carefully folding up wrapping paper for future use? Maybe it was a grandma or great aunt who lived through the Depression and learned to save anything that was usable, maybe it was just someone who was thrifty and knew how to pinch pennies. What ever the reason behind it, saving wrapping paper makes good green sense.

From National Geographic:

“Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s day, Americans throw away a million extra tons [900,000 metric tons] of garbage each week, including holiday wrapping and packaging, according to Robert Lilienfeld. Lilienfield is co-author of the book Use Less Stuff: Environmental Solutions for Who We Really Are.

So why not recycle holiday gift wrap? Lilienfield, who has published a newsletter on reducing waste since 1996, notes that if every family reused just 2 feet [0.6 meter] of holiday ribbon, the 38,000 miles [61,000 kilometers] of ribbon saved could tie a bow around the entire planet.”

Be that person. Save wrapping paper. Be shameless about it. Say, “You’re not going to keep that?” incredulously, and fold up paper and wind up ribbon that would be otherwise tossed. Hopefully, it will inspire other people to do the same.

I have a big storage box under the guest room bed. As I collect paper, I fold it up and store it there, so when it comes time to wrap something, I’ve already got supplies.

Make it fun. A friend and I reuse the same paper and send it back and forth over birthdays and holidays until it disintegrates or gets too small to use again. Then it usually becomes part of a craft project.