In Germany alone, around 600 tons of paper are used in the month of December. According to “Deutsche Umwelthilfe”, a large proportion of this is wrapping paper. This paper, which is usually colored and elaborately coated, has a very short lifespan. And due to the coating and the type of printing, most of the wrapping paper is not single-origin, which further complicates the already poor recycling rate of used paper.
Paper production requires large quantities of wood and water and is also highly energy-intensive. In addition, wrapping paper pollutes the environment with nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxides and other chemicals with which cellulose fibers have to be treated. Finally, production causes considerable amounts of CO2. As a rule of thumb, the more complex and heavier a wrapping paper is, the more harmful it is to the environment.
The paper industry is the world's fifth largest industrial energy consumer.
According to the Federal Environment Agency, the production of one ton of new paper requires as much energy as one ton of steel. And paper consumption has risen dramatically worldwide, especially in Germany. In 1991, every German citizen statistically consumed 70 kilograms of paper per year, now it is 243 kilograms. There are no official statistics on how much of this is wrapping paper.
According to estimates, an average of around 8,350 tons of new wrapping paper is used every year in Germany alone. According to the Environmental and Consumer Protection Agency, an average of 1.69 trees are needed for one ton of paper (cell fibers), which leads to 14,100 trees being cut down every year for German consumption alone; in addition, 480 million liters of water, considerable quantities of chemicals and 44 million kWh of energy are required, which roughly covers the annual energy requirements of a town with 12,000 to 13,000 inhabitants. Finally, the production of wrapping paper generates around 5,100 tons of CO2 emissions every year in Germany alone, and this does not even include the CO2 emissions caused by the constant need for transportation. One tree binds an average of 10 kg of CO2 per year; this means that around 509,000 trees are needed each year to compensate for the CO2 emissions caused. These figures only refer to actual consumption. Overcapacity in the production of disposable gift wrapping paper packaging is not included here.
The above figures refer to Germany alone. If the underlying calculation method is applied to Europe and every other country in the world with comparable wrapping behavior, this results in astronomical annual consumption of natural resources and environmental pollution for the production and distribution of a product that could easily be replaced by alternative, durable and recyclable products.