I was cleaning out a section of my basement last weekend and came across our collection of gift boxes from nationally branded department stores like Nordstrom, Macy’s,  Gap, Talbots, and the like.  As a family, we save gift boxes and reuse them primarily for Christmas and birthday giving.  This helps to keep from contributing to the 5 million tons of wrapping ingredients that will end up in landfills this holiday season.  It got me to thinking, why don’t these Brands offer an eco-friendly version of their gift boxes and/or offer me an incentive (read – discount) to bring the box in this holiday season and let them box/wrap my newly purchased gifts into them?  In fact, the packaging could become an interesting secondary discount coupon in itself that lives on and could be used to incent friends or family receiving the gifts to return to the Brand’s store and receive a nominal discount on their next purchase.

Special thanks to the San Angelo Standard Times for the article – “Go Green With Holiday Cleanup”  for the landfill statistic and practical suggestions for reducing your holiday packaging impact.

Author Update:

A quick update to this post with a special thank you to JoAnn Hines at packagingdiva.com for providing this bit of information.  Gucci offers eco-friendly packaging at their 284 flagship store locations.  According to the blog, upscaleswagger.com, “Gucci is taking the initiative to go green by implementing new eco-friendly packaging. The fashion brand wants to reduce dependence on materials and use 100% recyclable paper in packaging, so their revamping all packaging from the shopping bags to the gift boxes and even as little as to the tissue and ribbon that they use.”  Full post is here.

Are you interested in offering Eco-friendly holiday bags and gift boxes?  Check out the folks at Nashville Wraps.  They have a whole line of eco-friendly packaging called Green Way ®.