It’s a Green Christmas for us—we’re making our bath towels and linen sheets even more sustainable by wrapping in cloths
As a sustainable bedding and towels company, we at Sömn Home are working towards a better future. One of our goals is to make it easier for consumers to access planet-friendly home textiles. This year, we're out to make Christmas a little greener. By wrapping our sustainable towels and bedding sets in our own cloth offcuts, we can help reduce the enormous packaging waste associated with the holiday season.
We know. Everyone loves presents. Even if it’s not about the getting, there’s no doubt that at least a bit of holiday joy comes from the sight of brightly wrapped packages underneath the Christmas tree. But those lovingly wrapped parcels aren’t very kind to the environment. Canadians conservatively spend $100 million on cards and wrapping paper every year and throw out about 540,000 tonnes of wrapping paper in the same year—and most of this ends up at the dump.
"If you really enjoy wrapping gifts with paper, see what you have lying around the house. You can use newspapers, magazine pages, old maps, and calendars. If you have kids, don’t throw out their extra artwork—wrap with it instead! Kraft paper (if you have it) is fun to decorate and wrap with, and it can be recycled. Or save up those brown paper takeout bags and packing materials" (www.chatelaine.com).
Alternatively, repurposed cloth wrapping is an eco-friendly swap that can save some serious cash and time.
To get started, find a scrap of cloth that’s ready to be repurposed—a beautiful scarf, large kitchen towel or an old piece of fabric from your linen closet are great choices. We recommend using a cloth scrap about three to four times the surface area of the gift for easy wrapping. There are a few methods of cloth-wrapping. One of our favourites is the Japanese Furoshiki method. It takes a little time to learn, but once you’ve got it, you’ll be wrapping like a pro—no scissors or Scotch tape necessary.
The Furoshiki Gift Wrapping Method
- Spread the cloth as a square
- Place the gift in the middle on a diagonal
- Fold one side over
- Wrap the opposite corner
- Pinch the sides and knot
Follow along with our step-by-step video demo on @somn_home. We recommend incorporating a little festive creativity by integrating a twig of holly or spruce—or adding baubles to your package for a truly personalized unwrapping experience.
As part of making our own unwrapping experience a little less wasteful, we’ll be using some of our extra offcuts as gift wrapping ribbons this year when shipping our sustainable linen bedding sets and bath towels all across North America. We already design for minimal waste and set up production to use as much of our sustainably sourced textiles as possible. Most of our linen offcuts and remnants are collected and repurposed into kitchen towels, napkins, swatches, or used for sampling.
At Sömn, we always consider the entire lifecycle of our products—right down to the wrapping. Our packaging uses tissues, tapes, stickers, and stuffing mostly made from eco-friendly, recycled, recyclable, sustainable, or biodegradable materials.
Cloth wrapping is a great way to cut down waste while still having beautiful packages under the tree. Try wrapping in linen, cotton, silk (anything you can imagine) for beautiful gifts that will make a lasting impact on the recipient—not the environment. And that’s a wrap.