For a one off this might work but if you have a lot of presents to wrap, at Christmas for example, this is not an option. Unless you are filthy rich!
A cheaper, greener alternative much touted on the internet is to recycle newspaper as a wrap. The examples up on Pinterest look lovely and I have no problem with the idea. It’s the content that worries me. I cannot give a present wrapped in the turgid prose of the Stodgeville Gazette.
Which is why (in the days before the bulk tissue purchase), I used to use foreign news papers. Especially Chinese which I thought looked great. For sure they might be lamenting some dreadful triple murder and suicide but who’s to know! Unless you are Chinese obvs!
But how green is it to recycle a chinese newspaper that you cannot read? And I gave up the Stodgeville Gazette years ago.Which is why I ended up buying tissue paper in bulk.
Here are three alternative wrapping paper options:
Wrapping Tissue: This rather grainy, super-cheap tissue paper is used for wrapping breakables.of the cheaper packaging papers on the bulk buy market. I bought it wholesale in a polythene bag and that one purchase seems to be lasting a life time.
Brown Paper:Then there is the kraft paper used for the old school brown paper parcels. You can get huge rolls of this paper which again last forever. This option is very chic in the green, present-wrapping circles!
Newspaper Offcuts. This unmarked white paper is, as it sounds, a waste product of the newspaper industry.
Purchase
You can usually find all the above in shops selling packaging. If you go to a real shop you may be able to get some plastic free. Buy on line and in bulk and it will almost certainly come pre plastic-packed. You have to content yourself with the plastic offset and the knowledge that this plastic is already in your waste stream however you buy.
Read about our thoughts on bulk-buy, plastic-wrapped wholesale here.
Paper available on Amazon
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| White Tissue Paper – 450x700mm. Pack of 500… £16.00 |
PPD 500 Sheets Of White Packing Paper – New… £14.99 |
500mm x 10m Kraft Paper Roll 88gsm £3.55 |
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| 750mm x 20M Heavy Duty Brown Kraft Wrapping… £5.24 |
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| Refillable Crackers – Bundle of 6 snaps £2.50 |
Refillable Crackers 4 Packs (Folk Green) £12.75 |
Refillable Crackers 4 Packs (Ornate Jade) £12.75 |
More
You can find lots more plastic free Christmas tips here…
And you can read up more about special days and general partying here.
Shea Butter Leeds
This is a quick introduction to Shea Butter
Semi soft buttery oil. Read more about butter oils and waxes here.
Imported usually from Africa.
Has a soft velvety texture.
Can be used neat as a very rich moisturiser.
Mix with coconut oil to make a lighter body butter. Recipe here.
I love it added to home made creams and lotions.
Which Shea Butter?
Unrefined shea butter is going beige or ivory or ‘off white’
Bright white refined shea butter
Pale yellow may be shea from Nilotica (Viterallia Nilotica) and it’s natural
Deep yellow Shea Butter has been dyed originally with a natural dye from the Borututu tree or more likely now a synthetic dye.
Raw Shea Butter
In it’s natural form.
Unrefined Shea Butter
Some filtering allowed so remove larger particles.
Refined Shea Butter
Some form of processing which also removes its smell.
Read more about shea butter in Wikipedia
Buy
It can of course be bought online but here in Yorkshire we have a local supplier. Maya’s stall in Leeds Market. They specialise in black hair and beauty so if you don’t live near Leeds check to see if there is a similar store or even hairdressers near you.It does come in a plastic tub though.
PLASTIC SPOILER
Wether bought on line or locally there will be some plastic packaging either a bag or a tub. As I get huge amounts of product from one tub or bag I consider it a worthwhile compromise as it still represents a huge decrease in plastic consumption.
We Made
Body butter
More
See a full range of homemade #plasticfree personal care products here
Sticky Tape
Brown Kraft Tape 
Buy
I can only buy this on line and it sometimes come packed in plastic. Check with the supplier. Tapes Direct sell it and I got some from Ebay. Green Stationary This online company also sell a biodegradable tape. Here is the blurb “Eco paper packing tape, 50 metre long rolls of 50mm wide parcel packing tape made from brown 100% recycled paper, with a latex-based adhesive – a totally biodegradable tape to seal your parcels. Hi tac gives strong adhesion to boxes and cartons. Sold individually, this product has a matt finish.” I have to bought from them so I don’t know what the onward packaging is like……. And of course…Amazon
Being committed to local shopping, I prefer to buy that way whenever possible. I would encourage you to do the same. One of the joys of living plastic free is mooching round the local shops seeing what you can source. If you can’t buy local please do check the links above to the suppliers and buy direct from them and support their online businesses. If you can’t do that then I have put together and Amazon catalogue. Yes I know… |
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| 50mm Brown Self Adhesive Picture Frame Back… £3.60 | 75mm Brown Self Adhesive Picture Frame Back… £5.05 | 25mm Brown Self Adhesive Picture Frame Back… £1.99 |
Christmas
I always feel a sense of wonderment when I make something that turns out as good a shop bought but it looks like shop bought but it taste like shop bought sometimes actually it’s way better than shop bought anyway in that letter in that category falls my home-made sweet mincemeat which is so easy to make answer and looks just like the real thing.
2022 updates
Wrapping Paper
Both Sainsbury’s and Primark are doing plastic free wrapping paper and gift tags. Yay.
Back in the day I had to boycott Sellotape as they only used plastic to make their tapes. But times change and they have seen where the cool kids are at. Sellotape once again makes biodegradable cellophane tapes. Well done them.
The moral of this story – change is slow but it does happen. Keep on pushing.
Sticky and strong 0% plastic tape
Made from cellulose film and naturally based glue
Contains plant based, renewable ingredients
Packaging and core made from recycled cardboard
Cellulose film derived from wood pulp and sourced from PEFC certified sustainable forests
Anti-tangle and easy to tear
Fits all large core tape dispensers
I have seen them loose in Wilco or you can buy a pack of 3 online here
The moral of this story – change is slow but it does happen. Keep on pushing….
Want a paper tape? – try here
Advent Calendars
Let’s start planning Christmas….. The Works https://www.theworks.co.uk/ have a few interesting Christmas related plastic free products.
And they still have high street stores so you don’t have to worry about that pesky, onward packaging!
They have a wooden advent calendar reusable with little drawers for plastic free treats for each day. sadly the product itself comes in plastic but you will get years of use and … you can’t win them all!
They also have canals sacks and stockings for the end of the bed. These come in plastic free packing and being canvas areobviously made from natural fibers.
Reason why you want to use natural fibres can be found here. Because no one wants their Christmas socks to last for ever!
All The Rest
Here are some more fantastic waste free ideas for Christmas
Greetings cards
Read More
More
You can see the rest of our year HERE.
N.B.
lines changes, products get removed. For more information why not ask the Plastic Is Rubbish FB group for updates. They are a great source of tidbits, personal experience and the latest news. Why not join them and share the plastic free love x
And before you go…
If you have found the #plasticfree information useful, please consider supporting us. It all goes to financing the project (read more here) or
Advent Calendars
Covered in plastic and full of trashy sweets, they just add to the huge amounts of Christmas rubbish. So here are a few plastic free ideas.
The cheapest and easiest way is to make your own fabric calendar that can be rolled up and stored taking up minimum space.
This has to be one of the simpler design on the internet but just in case you cant work out how it’s done, here are the instructions.
If you don’t have a sewing machine try a fray free fabric like felt, some big hand stitching and glue and make one like this on pinkandgreenmama.blogspot.com.
Kits & Ready Made
You can buy fabric kits that contain with everything you need to sew your own, plus instructions. Cut out and assemble. Easy as.
You can also buy fabric calendars ready made.
These are available from Amazon. more details here
If you really don’t like sewing, try a toilet roll advent calendar. You can find out more from www.oh-write.blogspot.
But this one has to be my absolute favourite. Little individual wrapped presents hung on a stick. So cute.
It is featured along with other wonderful if rather intimidating ideas here on Pinterest
If you don’t have the time or inclination, you can get wooden calenders with little drawers that you can use year after year.
These too are available from Amazon. more details here
Treats
You will need to get some little plastic free treats – sweets are always good and easy to get hold of.
Or little gift vouchers for fun things to do…..
More
You can find lots more plastic free Christmas tips here…
And you can read up more about special days and general partying here.
Cigarettes
Far be it from me to promote smoking but the purpose of this blog is to find plastic free alternatives to all legal pastimes and last time I looked smoking still was.
So if you fancy a plastic-free fag, by which, our American friends, I mean a ciggarette, then what are your options? Well you can go to Aberystwith and buy plastic free loose rolling tobaccos
But if that is too far how about growing (and curing) your own. I haven’t tried this – if you do please let me know how you get on! Please note they say “yes totally minimal packaging possible , reuse and recycle all the way only at http://growyourownrollyourown.com” so contact them before you order and say you are plastic free!
Halloween labels and flour paste!
Print and stick these creepy labels onto a wine bottles to make a suitably themed halloween gift – but don’t use avery labels as some suggest! Print onto plain paper, cut out and attach to bottle of choice using homemade, boiled flour & water paste.
I have included a boiled flour and water paste from this paper mache making web page because it is easy and clear to follow but also because I think the rest of the site looks fascinating. And inspiring. You could use some of the techniques to make ghoulish sculptures, masks or even reusable pumpkin lanterns. That would save you some work!
Obviously adapt the choice of beverage if it’s for a child’s party!
Flour and water paste attached labels wash off easily if you are using a reusable bottle… of course you are using a reusable bottle!
More ideas for Halloween can be found here….
Halloween colouring pages for kids
The day of the dead skull and more nice stuff is over at cool moms.
These are more kid focused. You print them out, colour them in.
And then use them to decorate your home made plastic free Trick or Treat bags?
There are more printables over on my Pinterest page.
And lots more plastic free Halloween ideas here.
sugru – mending plastic
“What if you could fix, modify or make almost anything? That’s why we invented sugru.”
and I have long been a fan! It is high up there in my plastic2cutplastic category. That is a product with plasticky elements that helps to ultimately reduce your plastic use. Sugru is a rubbery stuff that can be hand moulded and used in dry or wet, hot and cold situations to mend (or adapt) all manner of things especially plastic products that are getting a bit wobbly. I hardly need stress the advantages but here’s a copy of the press release any way….
“sugru was created by a young product designer on a mission to empower people who want to repair and enhance their products. It moulds like play dough, sticks to almost anything and turns into a strong flexible rubber overnight.Adopted by people in over 150 countries, there are simply thousands of uses for sugru, from modifying kit on expeditions to the North Pole through to homeowners making small improvements to gadgets, appliances and even toys.” You can read more here..
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- fixed with sugru
It really does work! I have used it to mend chargers saving them from landfill and me the cost of buying new.
Also to seal a gap in the wooden trim above the kitchen sink. Better looking than shiny silicone seal, easier to use and far less packaging.
As packaging goes, yes they do come in plastic lined foil sachets but they are packed in a cardboard envelope so the packaging is minimal and necessary to keep the product from drying out.
sugru is available at a wide range of retailers including B&Q and Wilko as well as online at sugru.com.
Because it is so darn handy it will come as no surprise that sugru are also supporting Waste Less Live More Week of which I am a proud partner.
Bit more press release…
“Inventor and CEO of sugru, Jane ni Dhulchaointigh is also looking forward to the challenge: ‘being resourceful brings a little bit of creative thinking into everyday life and I love that! We designed sugru to be easy to use in the hope that it might encourage people not only to reduce waste but to feel more confident and creative about fixing and improving things too. The Waste Less Live More challenge is a brilliantly easy way for people to make small changes… and if enough of us do those small things, it could make a big difference.”