Gift-giving with an eye on waste

Christmas is the time for tinsel, cards, and those big beautiful packages. But all those holiday trimmings come at a cost to the environment. Once the presents are opened, there's a lot to throw away.

Packaging makes up about a third of what Americans throw away, according to some estimates. That's why some consumers and even a few businesses are seeking ways to keep holiday cheer from turning into post-holiday trash.

The movement is recent enough that many retailers and manufacturers haven't climbed aboard. "A lot of companies, unfortunately, are not looking to reduce holiday waste," says Eric Most, director of the solid-waste prevention program for Inform, an environmental research group in New York. Still, environmental advocates see encouraging signs from businesses.

One of the most recent moves comes from Norm Thompson Outfitters. In October, the Portland, Ore., retailer announced that after extensive customer testing, it had switched paper, using at least 10 percent post-consumer recycled content in all its catalogs.

"To our knowledge, Norm Thompson is the only mainstream catalog company to use recycled paper routinely in all of its catalogs," says Victoria Mills, manager of the Alliance for Environmental Innovation, a Boston-based project of the Environmental Defense and the Pew Charitable Trusts. "Their move to recycled [paper] could pave the way" for the entire industry.

Last year, companies in the United States sent out 16.6 billion catalogs, according to the Direct Marketing Association. That's 59 catalogs for every man, woman, and child in the United States.

And while retailers probably won't reach that record this year, thanks to postal-rate increases and the recession, the alliance and Norm Thompson estimate an industrywide move to 10 percent recycled paper would still save enough wood each year to meet the annual copy-paper needs of 18 million people.

"There are a lot of myths about recycled paper: costs more, doesn't print as well," says Derek Smith, sustainability manager for Norm Thompson. In fact, costs have fallen to about the same price as virgin coated paper and printing quality has improved dramatically, he adds. When the company tested response rates to virgin- and recycled-paper catalogs, it found that customers responded equally well.

Packaging offers another huge potential for waste reduction. Recycled paperboard is used for more than half the products on supermarket shelves - from cereal boxes to cake mixes.

But in other sectors, where the switch has come more slowly, certain products stand out, says Bruce Hammond, another project manager for the Alliance for Environmental Innovation.

Cartons of Colgate and Clairol Natural Instincts, for example, use recycled paperboard. True, toothpaste and hair color don't usually top Christmas lists, but other products packaged in recycled paperboard - Warner Bros. videos and DVDs, Hewlett-Packard printer cartridges, Kodak film boxes - might fill the bill.

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