While we give and receive gifts year-round, the practice tends to increase this time of year. If you’re someone who considers the environmental impact of your choices, perhaps on gift-giving occasions you will try one of these ideas to reduce, reuse, or recycle.
Reduce your use of single-use wrapping paper or bags. Instead, use cloth bags or wrap that can become part of the gift.
Reuse materials that you receive or have on hand. Paper bags, tissue paper, ribbon, paper, ribbons, and bows can all be used again and again. When receiving gifts wrapped with these, take care to store for another use. Creatively use the paper you have for gift wrapping: newspaper, maps, packing paper, or children’s art. Find used materials to create your own wrapping at SCRAP Creative Reuse, located at 919 SE Stark Ave.
Recycle by purchasing wrapping paper made from post-consumer recycled material. Paper embedded with glitter or shiny foil cannot be recycled; it goes in the garbage. Only “plain” paper can go in the recycle cart. Ribbons and bows, no longer in use, go in the garbage, not recycling.
With more of these items being recycled, here are directions for dealing with packaging:
- Plastic mailing envelopes and bubble wrap like bubble mailers cannot go in your curbside recycle cart. They can be taken back to stores for recycling or use Ridwell if you have access.
- Mailing envelopes that are a mix of paper and plastic are garbage, not recyclable.
- “Therma-form” — those hard-to-open plastic packages around items — are garbage. The only plastics accepted in the blue recycle cart are clean plastic bottles, jugs, round food containers, and rigid plant pots.
Liz Erickson has lived in the neighborhood with her husband and two children since 2009. Growing up in Beaverton, she remembers visiting grandparents on NE 42nd and walking to Ristol’s Ice Cream for a scoop of butter brickle. She’s a Master Recycler volunteer with Metro and served in the Peace Corps in Morocco.