Save paper this Christmas without Datamolino.

At Datamolino we love saving paper. In fact, the desire for a paper free office is one of the reasons customers are switching to cloud technologies for their accounting needs. Saving paper through invoice processing and automation is as easy as signing up here, but to save paper at Christmas can take a little more effort. A  sleigh full of paper is ready to tumble your way over the next couple of weeks in the form of cards and wrapping paper, most of which ends up in the bin. It is estimated that in the UK alone, there is enough wrapping paper thrown away at Christmas to go around the Earth … 9 times!  We don’t want all your hard work saving paper with Datamolino to be undone at Christmas, so try these easy ideas to save more paper and money.

Christmas Cards

Americans love Christmas cards and give about 2 billion of them EVERY year, which equates to almost 300 000 trees. With numbers like this e-cards are an obvious switch to make. Electronic cards are quick, cheap and most are free. With current online software capabilities e-cards are actually more impressive than physical cards. At Rattlebox you can use your own images and text to send cards and short videos. The creative types at JibJab guide you through the process of creating animated cards with pictures of loved built in – it is super easy and much more impressive than anything made from paper. At Smilebox you can build cards with audio embedded too. If e-cards aren’t tangible enough for you then try recycling cards from the previous year. Old cards can be reused by adding white paper to the inside, or simply cutting them up to make new cards and gift tags.

Wrapping paper

Christmas paper is an environmental monster, it takes a mass of resources to produce and has a half life of about 5 seconds in the hands of any ten year old. The obvious choice for saving paper is to recycle last year’s Christmas paper, but you can really recycle any type of paper for wrapping. Why not try old magazine paper, poesters or even maps! Save even more paper by not over wrapping gifts and try gift bags that can be reused many times. Used Christmas paper can also be reused as paper bows and postage packaging. Smaller gifts can be put in Christmas stockings to save on paper … though sometimes it’s the smallest gifts that are the most expensive.

The other option is to make the paper itself more ‘valuable’. Eden’s Paper is wrapping paper with seeds built in, once the paper has done its job you simply bury it and wait for your own fresh vegetables and flowers to grow. The Japanese have a beautiful method of wrapping things in small scarves or fabric squares called ‘furoshiki‘. Old scarves can be bought from second hand shops and the results are really impressive – it saves paper and can be two gifts in one!

Finally, if you can’t reduce or reuse cards and paper then at least make sure it all goes into the recycle bin.

Merry Christmas!