McMahonMatrix2



It has become the cultural norm that a gift has to be wrapped. We, as a society, have gotten hooked on wrapping paper, boxes, and bows. There is a scientific explanation for this addiction. A study was undergone on primates that measured excitation levels in the brain while monkeys fed themselves. However, they did not feed themselves normally, but rather obtained their food through a device that would dispense food ten seconds after a lever was pulled. Scientists were astounded to learn that the highest levels of excitement didn’t occur when the monkeys pulled the lever or ate the food, but rather during the waiting period between pulling the lever and receiving food. This same sort of anticipation spike can be seen in the present phenomena. When I look back on unwrapping presents, I have fallen victim to this same excitement. During the holiday season, Americans increase their waster produced by 25%. This amounts to a total increase in 5 million tons of waste over the season. Of this waste, 4 million tons are attributed to gift bags, wrapping paper, and ribbon. Basically, 4 million tons of waste that was only used to make a present look good once. However, people seem to think that because the name “wrapping paper” has the name paper in it, the product can be recycled just like paper. In fact, the very opposite is true. Most of the time, the tinsel, dyes, laminate, glitter, and non-paper additives make the material highly unrecyclable. As such, thousands more tons are moved from recycling plants that have been contaminated by wrapping paper. It is easy to think that if we simply cut down on spending during the holidays, this problem may go away when in actuality we use gift wrappings every day. Today Is someone’s birthday, anniversary, or a holiday with thousands of gifts being wrapped every day. It is estimated by a Stanford University research group that if every American family wrapped just three presents a year in a recyclable material (or not at all) that 70 square miles of wrapping paper could be conserved. Almost half of the paper products produced in the country goes towards gift packaging. This makes it a 2.6 billion dollar industry. Of course, recyclable wrapping paper isn’t the only solution. The Japanese have been using decorative cloth to wrap presents for centuries. These cloth pieces can then be used again or utilized for a different purpose. After all, cloth is more versatile than tensile. A less fancy option for the average person is to use the common newspaper as wrapping paper. Many pulp and paper mills are fully equipped to handle newspaper. At the very least, people can try to not simply rip through their wrapping paper, but rather gingerly remove the material in an attempt to reuse the material later.

Annotations:

"Eco-Friendly Wrapping Paper Alternatives | Environmentally Sound Bagging Options | Easy Ways to Go Green." Tips to Help You Go Green | Going Green Made Easy | Easy Ways to Go Green. 6 Oct. 2010. Web. 08 Nov. 2011. . The author of this article was not ever mentioned, but the article as a whole pulls facts and data from various other sources that I saw while searching for articles. Therefore, I would call it safe to assume that most of this information is factual, common knowledge as far as the internet is concerned. Since I basically only used this article for hard numbers on the disposal of wrapping paper, the credentials seemed secondary. The quotes, “In the United States alone, an additional 5 million (an equivalent to 25% more garbage) tons of waste is generated during the winter holidays,” “if every American family wrapped just three presents in re-used materials, it would save enough paper to cover nearly 50k football fields” and “Based on an idea that originated centuries ago in Korea and Japan as a way to wrap and transport items before the widespread use of paper and plastic” gave the general facts and alternatives needed for my information. All of these points were incorporated into my writing while I forgot to mention the football statistic in my speech.

"Facts About Recycling Wrapping Paper - Earth911.com." Earth911.com - Find Recycling Centers and Learn How To Recycle. Web. 08 Nov. 2011. . This article was another article that was comprised of different data pulled together for multiple sources. These include "Wrapping Paper" Recycle Now, "Eco-Wrapping" Eco-Chick. "Gift Wrap Overview", and Hallmark. This article gave crucial information on the recycling aspects of the wrapping paper as well as the total amount of industry involved with the gift culture. From this paper, I discovered that, “as much as half of the 85 million tons of paper products Americans consume every year goes toward packaging, wrapping and decorating goods.” Of these tons of paper, the, “Wrapping paper is often dyed and laminated. It can also contain non-paper additives, such as gold and silver coloring, glitter and plastics. It can be very thin and contain few good quality fibers for recycling. It usually has tape on it from the gift wrapping.” Which inhibits it from being recycled any further. This article also gives me the statistic that “it would save enough paper to cover 45,000 football fields.” Which gives credit to this statistic’s robustness. While this article wasn’t used as much in my speech, it was utilized in my paper. []. com http://eco-chick.com/2006/11/20/eco-wrapping/ [].

Martinez, Maria. "The Holiday Season: Statistics to Consider." Mother Nature Network, 17 Dec. 2009. Web. 8 Nov. 2011. . While this article touched somewhat on the impact of wrapping gifts in our society, there was also a blatant humanitarian message with where to redirect the resources saved by using less wrapping substance. This article really contained no new information, but rather reinforced the statistic with which my argument was based around. Since there was no official site for these statistics such with the mower example, this gave increased evidence that the reported information is true.