is there a more environmentally friendly alternative to wrapping paper??

[nappyaddict]

every year i buy rolls and rolls and rolls of the stuff which is then ripped off in about 7 seconds and thrown across the living room floor. it seems such a waste that all those trees are being chopped down for the sake of 7 seconds!!

I use material bought from charity shops, or old scarves bought from charity shops. Works brilliantly, you can just tie them on with ribbons or string and they look dead impressive. Then the receiver can either give it you back or use it themselves.

I've got a bagful and my mum has a bagful and they go back and forth each year.

My family re-use gift bags. They just go back and forward between us.

I tend to use curtains or large tablecloths and I fold and iron them rather than cut them if they are too big (within reason obviously, I have a selection made up in various sizes but you can't do much if they are too small!)

Big scarves are great though because you can fold them down easily.

I have just ordered a load of these: reuable cloth bags What I love about them is that you can track where they go next by their unique ID number!

newspaper or old plastic bags?

I try to save the good bits of wrapping paper from year to year.

IlanaK those bags are great!

but I fear the energy costs of shipping them would outweigh a lifetime's worth of trees for wrapping paper.

Has anybody seen anything like them in the UK?

If anyone is interested, I did find the following reusable gift bags on UK sites:
organic-ally

plain bags to decorate

cotton bags wholesaler

Anyone got any more?

and
how do I weigh up the waste of paper & energy to produce wrapping paper as against the polluting and energy intense production of cotton? AAAGH

I am off to post this again on the eco-living topic

the organic ones are really nice