::The Slate Green Challenge
by Brittany Jacobs, Seattle 
on 11.29.06
Opening up holiday gifts can be fun and exciting, but all of that wrapping paper helps add to the 1 million extra tons of trash that is created during the holiday season. If every American household wrapped three gifts in recycled materials, we could save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields! You can help cut down the amount of garbage you send to the landfill by reusing old wrapping paper, gift bags or boxes. Be creative this season by covering your presents in nonconventional gift wrap such as old maps, the Sunday comics or cloth. If can't live without purchasing new gift wrap, try to buy recycled paper or tree-free paper made from hemp or flax.
28,541 people have joined the Slate Green Challenge with TreeHugger in a pledge to reduce their carbon emissions by twenty percent. It’s not too late to join us! Start with an initial carbon footprint quiz and we will then provide you with information on how to reduce your impact on the Earth. Be one of the first 500 and receive a Slate/Treehugger Green Challenge t-shirt from our friends and sponsors at I'm Organic. ::Slate Green Challenge Welcome ::Slate Green Challenge Week 6: Holiday
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I made my own gift bags last year from brocade fabrics and will be making some more this year. My kids asked if I could make them dice bags, so I did that too, then all their friends wanted them as well!
I also used brocade fabric pillowcases as gift bags - my niece loved those and snapped them all up.
I'm recycling a set of bear fabric tote bags for my sister-in-law's gifts this year. Last year hers were in bear-shaped holiday pillowcases.
The holiday bags from Target are nice enough this year to use as gift wrap - maybe just add a bow if they don't look fancy enough for you. They've made them thick enough you can't see through them.
And I'll be giving gift cards to several people to save wrapping their gifts at all.
And all my blog friends are getting a llama from heifer.org!