Opening presents isn’t just exciting for kids. But have you ever considered the environmental impact of wrapping paper?
We wrap presents to add an element of surprise to gifting and increase the excitement. Indeed, a study has found that if a gift is wrapped, we are more likely to like the present itself. (Howard, 1992)
For many of us, not wrapping a present in appropriate gift paper isn’t an option. The result, especially during Christmas, is a heap of wrapping paper. But it can be recycled, right?
Wrong. Most UK councils won’t accept gift wrapping in their recycling schemes. And the ones that do, only accept it, if it’s made of pure paper.
You might already guess that this is one reason wrapping paper isn’t good for our environment. Here are all the reasons at a glance:
- Produces staggering amounts of waste
- Wastes vast amounts of resources
- Causes chemical pollution
- Microplastics pollution
- Contributes to climates change
Let’s look at them all in more detail, shall we?
It Creates Huge Amounts Of Waste
With so many local authorities not accepting gift wrap at their recycle facilities, and the UK isn’t the only country this happens, most of it ends up in landfill.
Wrapping paper is a single-use items, as it’s only used once. And we know that single-use items are responsible for a huge amount of waste.
In the UK, we throw away 227,000 miles of wrapping paper each Christmas alone, according to data from the UK government. That’s enough to wrap up the Island of Guernsey.
In the US, they bin 1.3 billion tonnes of gift paper each year, according to research by San Diego State University. You could wrap 40 American Football fields with that.
The Canadians throw away 540 thousand tonnes of wrapping paper and gift bags per year, according to a 2017 study by Zero Waste Canada, as reported by Global News.
That’s only three countries, but the amounts thrown away each year are already staggering. And it’s not just the gift paper either. Now add sticky tape, ribbons, decorations, and gift tags and the waste pile becomes bigger and bigger.
Landfills, even so called sanitary landfills, have a negative impact on our environment.
They leach greenhouse gases, pollute soil and groundwater with toxic chemicals, which also bioaccumulate in microorganisms, and landfill fires, which are quite common, release toxic substances into our air. (Vaverková, 2019)
And rather than reducing waste, we are likely to increase the amount of waste we produce by 70% by 2050, according to estimates by the IMF.
So clearly, the problem will get worse, unless we act. One way to act is to reduce waste. We have come up with some zero-waste living ideas to get you started.
But given the above statistics, wrapping paper is one single-use item we need to stop using. However, that doesn’t mean you have to stop wrapping presents. Check out these eco-friendly gift paper alternatives you can use instead.
Wasted Natural Resources
Wrapping paper, despite its name, isn’t made of just paper in most cases. It contains many other materials, such as foil and plastic. This is why you can’t recycle gift paper with most UK recycling facilities.
The nature of gift paper as a single-use items means that many resources are used to produce it for it being binned after just being used once.
The resources wasted in this fashion include:
- Wood – trees need to be cut down to provide the paper parts of gift wraps
- Petroleum – the plastic in gift paper is made from fossil fuels, which isn’t a renewable resource
- Energy – manufacturing processes need energy
- Aluminium – the foil part is mostly likely made from this metal
We know that thanks to deforestation, we have lost huge amounts of trees. The UN estimates that we have lost 420 million hectares of forest since 1990.
Although trees are a renewable natural resource, they take decades to grow big enough to be cut down for use. With demand for resources continuously rising, thanks to our consumerist society, this isn’t fast enough.
Petroleum is used to create petrochemicals, which in turn are used to make plastic. Like with other fossil fuels, there is only a limited amount of petroleum in the ground.
And while we need to stop using fossil fuels altogehter, wasting them on single-use items like wrapping paper is definitely not a good idea, is it?
Making gift paper involves different manufacturing process, all of which use energy. With high levels of energy still produced with fossil fuels, this is bad news for the environment.
All this energy just so we can wrap presents and then throw the wrapping paper away.
Aluminium production has a huge environmental impact. Mining bauxite, which is the base ore, contributes to habitat and biodiversity loss. The other production stages, refining and smelting are responsible for huge greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions.
Refining accounts for 61% of total GHG emissions of the industry, while smelting is responsible for 19%, due to their energy consumption. (Zoboli, 2025)
The thing is, aluminium can easily be recycled, and recycled indefinitely. The recycling process only uses 5% of energy the manufacturing process uses. (Al-Alimi et al., 2024)
This means recycling aluminium uses 95% less energy than producing it new. But as wrapping paper containing foil can’t be recycled, this is energy saving is lost and vital energy is wasted.
But the environmental impact of wrapping paper doesn’t stop there.
Chemical Pollution
Whether the wrapping paper contains plastic or aluminium, as it breaks down, it causes harm to our environment.
Studies have shown that plastic releases toxic chemicals as it breaks down. (Wojnowska-Baryla et al., 2022) We have already said that landfills leach harmful chemicals into soil and groundwater.
And because plastics can take hundreds or even thousands of years to break down (Chamas et al., 2020), this means an awful lot of toxic chemicals being released.
And it’s not just the plastic elements of the gift paper that cause chemical pollution. The dyes and laminates used to make it look nice, have shown to contain heavy metals, including iron, nickel, and lead, which can leak into the environment and cause real harm. (Bertagnolli and Katz, 2007)
Any stick tape, glitter, and other embellishements, mostly made of plastic, will also release toxic chemicals as they degrade in landfill, adding to chemical pollution.
Microplastics Pollution
When plastic breaks down, it also releases tiny plastic particles, so-called microplastics. These tiny plastic pieces manage to get everywhere.
Scientist have found them in several animal species (Baalkhuyur et al., 20180, Hernandez-Gonzales et al., 2018, Provencher et al., 2020), us humans (Kannan and Vimalkumar, 2021), plants. (Zantis et al. from 2022)
As wrapping paper, glitter, sticky tape, ribbons and other decorations are most likely made of plastic, they will contribute to the microplastics pollution. Now consider how much of this stuff we use every year.
A scary thought, right? And like most other plastic, these microscopic particles will stay around for a long time, leaching toxic chemicals.
And while the exact extent of the harm these microplastics isn’t known yet, studies have started to emerge that show what negative effects they have on animals, us humans, and plants.
From affecting photosynthesis, over decreased fertility to liver toxicity, the harm microplastic do are becoming more and more clear. (Kärrman et al., 2016)
The only way to reduce microplastics pollution is to stop using plastic items whenever possible. These easy plastic-free swaps are a good starting point.
Contributes To Climate Change
All the above impacts also contribute to climate change, which could make our planet a very hostile place to live, unless we turn a corner. But let’s look closer at how the use of wrapping paper contributes to climate change.
The Impact Of Waste On Climate Change
We have said that the nature of gift paper, being a single-use item, means it creates a huge amount of waste. Landfills emit many gases as the waste breaks down. Among these are greenhouse gases, especially methane but also carbon dioxide. (Kiehbadroudinezhad et al., 2024)
The UN Environment Programme estimates that waste is responsible for 20% of all methane emissions, thus heavily contributing to global warming and climate change.
The Impact Of Overuse Of Resources On Climate Change
The need for wood for paper fuels deforestation, which is one of the drivers of climate change. Trees absorb and store carbon dioxide, keeping it out of the atmosphere (Lv et al., 2024)
The carbon emissions produced by deforestation are the second highest, research suggests. (Van Der Werf et al., 2009)
Only fossil fuel combustion is responsible for more, which happens when energy is generated. We know that manufacturing the materials for wrapping paper uses a huge amount of energy, so it also contributes to CO2 emissions.
We have already discussed the amount of emissions released from the making of aluminium, which is used in some shiny foil gift wraps.
We have said that most gift paper contains plastic, which is made from petrochemicals, which means fossil fuels. Our continued use of fossil fuels in all sorts of ways, including energy creation, heating, and plastic production drives climate change.
The scientific community is very clear: if we want to achieve the 1.5 Degree Celsius target set in the Paris Agreement and stop climate change, we have to keep fossil fuels in the ground. (Rayner 2020)
Impact Of Chemical Pollution On Climate Change
We have already said that landfills are responsible for polluting the air, soil, and water with harmful chemicals. This has a direct impact on climate change.
Many of the air pollutants are greenhouse gases, which cause global warming and thus climate change. (Singh et al., 2021)
Soil pollution leads to a disruption of ecosystems, and changes the structure of soil. This leads to soil biodiversity loss, which is a driver of climate change. (Mishra et al. 2016)
Equally, water pollution heavily impacts on aquatic ecosystems and poses a risk to aquatic life. (Khasanova et al., 2023) The resulting biodiversity loss drives climate change.
Impact Of Microplastics Pollution On Climate Change
We have already said that microplastics can be found pretty much everywhere on the planet.
These tiny plastic particles disrupt ecosystem exposed to them, which causes global warming and in term climate change in different ways.
For example, they interfere with oceans’ capacity to mitigate climate change in various ways. (Parvez et al., 2024)
Microplastics in the soil disrupt the cycling of carbon and nitrogen by affecting the soil’s microorganisms. As a result, more carbon dioxide and nitrous oxide (both greenhouse gases) are released into the atmosphere. (Quin et al., 2022)
And we know that these greenhouse gases are a major cause of climate change.
In the air, microplastics contribute to more clouds forming, which in turn contributes to climate change. (Ganguly and Ariya, 2019)
Sustainable Wrapping Paper Alternatives Are A MUST
All the facts we have discussed here make one thing very clear: the environmental impact of wrapping paper is huge. It goes far beyond the amount of waste it produces.
So what can eco-conscious people like you and me do? Simple, switch to eco-friendly alternatives. There are so many things you can use to wrap presents that impact our environment.
How about making your own reusable gift bags from natural fabrics or that cotton t-shirt you don’t wear anymore?
Or newspaper and magazine pages (not the glossy ones though as they aren’t recyclable). We have put a list together of sustainable gift wraps that will help you to reduce your environmental footprint.
With these sustainable alternatives you can make giving gifts eco-friendly. Why not have a look and get inspired for the next present you need to wrap?
And if you need help with finding something to wrap, our sustainable gifting guide will help you figure out what it means to give an eco-friendly gift. And if you need some more concrete inspiration, we have put together a list of the 14 best sustainable gift ideas for all occasions.
While you’re thinking of the perfect gift, also spare a thought for the greeting card. Did you know that many greeting cards can’t be recycled, because they contain other materials such as glitter or foil? A sustainable gift should always come with a recyclable greeting card.
If you want to make your Christmas more sustainable, check out our list of eco-friendly Christmas decorations for inspiration.
