Waste-free Gifting: Giving and Receiving

Whenever any occasion which calls for gifts arises, here's what most people usually do — pick out the gift, have it wrapped up in the shop itself (or wrap it up at home with whatever, if bought online) and boom, it's ready to go. And when anyone receives a gift, they follow their first instinct, which is to rip open the wrapping. 

As thrifty as we desis are, given that we reuse soft drink bottles, store plastic bags in another plastic bag for later and use everything till the very last drop, the idea of gifting less wastefully often slips the minds of even the most chindi and jugaadu families. 

Wrapping paper is usually a single-use commodity, and most of it isn't recycled. So after we're done with it, where will it go? Into the dreaded landfill. Imagine the amount of waste we generate during the festive season. 

Here are some ways to generate less waste both when giving and receiving gifts. You don't have to be artistic or anything for it.

Just give the presents bare.

If the recipient is a close friend or family member, and if the occasion is casual, don't wrap the present at all. No one's going to judge you for it in such a setting. Maybe tie a ribbon around it or stick a card on it, but nothing else is needed. 

Pack them sustainably.

Even then, most occasions do require a beautifully packaged present. Especially if the recipient isn't someone you know well, and/or the occasion will involve a lot of people, like a wedding, a big birthday bash, a dinner party with a fair few families, etc etc. 
There's a small chance of garnering a few eyeballs and judgemental stares if you bring an unwrapped present. Unfortunately, most people judge a gift by the way it is presented, and I hope they do away with this notion someday. But until that day comes, we can package gifts generating little to no waste in the process.

 Here are a few ways to achieve this.

• Whenever you receive a present, open it carefully. Stash the wrapping paper for future use. In fact, stash everything. Ribbons, tags, shredded paper, bags... Make it your mission to never get fresh wrapping paper. 

In this drawer, I store all the gifting supplies I've hoarded over the years. For the longest time, we have never used fresh wrapping paper or gift tags. We only reused them or repurposed something else for the same.

• If I receive or buy anything with interesting packaging, I customise it and use it for gifting. Nothing is wasted.

This box had freebies from UrbanLadder. I stuck triangles cut from colourful magazine pages over it. You can keep it simple and stick anything else over it.

• Use gift bags. They can be used over and over. Use bags you have received from others, or if you have paper, fabric or polypropylene bags lying around, customise them and turn them into gift bags. How about wrapping your present in a tote bag? Cotton bags are a great option too.

These bags have been transformed into gift bags. On the black one, I stuck leftover bits of paper from my class projects (Remember what I said about not wasting a single scrap? This is where they come into use.) and on the white one, I made a collage of magazine pictures to hide the logos on the bags.

• Try other reusable ideas. How about furoshiki, the Japanese art of wrapping a gift with a scarf? You could use a potholder, a t-shirt, a tablecloth, oven gloves... you end up wrapping a gift in another gift!

• For gift tags, use whatever you already have. Old calendars, boxes, bookmarks —  anything will do. Be creative. Maybe use a dried leaf as a 'tag'.

Remember my previous article where I mentioned that any cardstock and cardboard is an asset? This is where it comes in handy.

• Transform any old box into a gift box by sticking wrapping paper or any pretty paper over it.

• If you still need to cover books for school and use paper for that purpose, you could use it to wrap presents. Better still, if you are unable to reuse last year's book covers for the upcoming school years, you can repurpose those.

• Newspapers are also a great option. If you are artistic, you can make patterns on them with acrylic or gouache paint to glam it up.

• Try using old maps, sheet music or your kids' old artwork too.

• Keep some fancy envelopes to gift small or flat things. They could be envelopes from another occasion, or you can make them from colourful paper or magazines.

I transformed a faded envelope lying in my drawers with magazine papers and some coloured paper I had salvaged from my class earlier.

• When you need to wrap a present, look through your stash of gifting supplies and search for a bag, box or paper that just about fits your gift. Try to ensure that there is as little excess paper as possible, or the bag has little to no extra space when you place the gift inside.

• If you have gift wrap in bad condition, use them as substitutes for coloured paper in school projects.

Encourage the recipient to reuse the packaging.

• If using a gift bag, include a small, humorous note requesting the recipient to reuse the bag for gifting. Be subtle about it, though.

• If using wrapping paper, look up some wrapping techniques that use little to no tape when wrapping it. Some techniques use origami folds, which eliminate the use of tape altogether. You could use techniques that use one piece of tape which on being removed, the gift unravels. Easy to reuse the paper. 

Gifting usually generates a lot of waste. By using these techniques, you do the environment a lot of good. It saves money and effort too. Feel free to add to this list. Comment down below and tell me about your ideas.