Christmas is a climate killer in the face of millions of felled trees, huge mountains of garbage and unbridled gluttony. In the multi-part SPIEGEL guide you will learn how the festival will be as sustainable as possible. This time: wrapping paper.
- Read the previous episode here: Unholy Shopping Spree
Little time? At the end of the text there is a summary.
Many a family may be ashamed this year to look at the paper mountain, which has left the mess. In the days of Greta Thunberg, "Fridays for Future" and plastic bags banned from the supermarket, the ecological conscience also stirs with the wrapping paper. After all, every second would for reasons of sustainability on packaging do without Christmas, shows a representative survey for the SPIEGEL.
But how bad is wrapping paper really and which alternatives are there?
The production of paper not only requires a lot of wood, it is also energy intensive. According to the Federal Environment Agency, one ton of new paper requires just as much energy as a ton of steel. And paper consumption has increased dramatically worldwide, especially in Germany. In 1991, every German citizen statistically consumed 70 kilograms per year, meanwhile it is 243 kilograms.
The more elaborate, the more polluting
Nobody knows exactly how much of it is wrapping paper. There is no official statistic.
If one calculates with a commercial role (three meters long, 70 centimeters wide, 60 grams per square meter) per adult, 8.7 million kilograms would be collected nationwide. One kilo of new paper requires about 50 liters of water and five kilowatt hours of energy. Roughly 435 million liters of water and 43.5 million kilowatt hours would be consumed, which roughly corresponds to the energy requirements of a small town with 12,500 inhabitants.
The balance of recycled paper is better: the production uses only half as much energy and one third of the water, ie around 145 million liters of water and 21.75 million kilowatt hours of electricity.
In addition, wrapping paper pollutes the environment with nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides and other chemicals that require pulp fibers to be treated.
As a rule of thumb, the more expensive and heavier a wrapping paper, the more polluting it is. The huge mixers in paper mills, so-called pulpers, have trouble removing aluminum, plastics and scraps of adhesive tape from the wrapping paper. This again consumes a lot of water and energy. "Plastic or metal foils and coated papers are poorly recyclable and therefore not recommended," advises the Federal Environmental Agency.
Coated paper is therefore not in the paper bin, but in the residual waste. Then it can be used at least in waste incineration plants. However, at best, one-fifth of the energy needed to produce new paper can be converted back into usable energy.
Mogelpackung "chlorine-free bleached"
"You can recognize the environmentally friendly gift papers by the Blue Angel environmental label," the Federal Environmental Agency recommends. The label guarantees that the paper fibers used are 100 percent recovered from waste paper.
Other labels such as FSC or PEFC are less helpful from an environmental point of view. While they represent sustainable forest management, papers with this label are often not made from recycled material. The stamp "chlorine-free bleached" even means that no waste paper is included. Chlorine or chlorine compounds are needed to bleach virgin fiber. However, only five percent of the papers worldwide are bleached with pure chlorine anyway.
However, paper recycling also requires energy. From an environmental point of view, it is therefore best to waste as little of it as possible. Watch the video to see how the mathematical formula works for paper-saving gift wrapping.
In the video: Is there the perfect wrapping formula?
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In order to calm the ecological conscience of the customers, numerous offerers sell supposedly more environment-friendly gift bags or cloths. However, their balance is only positive if they are really used several times and do not end up crumpled in the drawer after the first use.
If you want to save as much energy as possible when disposing of a disposable bag, you can use newspaper that would be thrown away anyway or recycle old wrapping paper.
Even a plastic bag is from an energetic point of view usually better than new, elaborately decorated and heavy wrapping paper. Their production only needs about half as much energy as the same amount of new paper. However, paper degrades in nature, plastic does not. There are also providers who offer fully compostable wrapping paper, produced with green electricity from sustainable forestry. But that also consumes resources.
Conclusion: With a perfect ecological conscience, a gift can not be torn open and the packaging thrown away. Recycled, uncoated paper, however, saves a lot of wood, water and energy. Or you stick to the federal government. "Maybe a bow for decoration on a gift sometimes suffices?", It says on their homepage.
