Did you know that wrapping paper can be a common source of many toxins? This is probably the furthest thing from your mind when you are wrapping presents for little ones in anticipation of the visible excitement those gifts bring them. I know that for me, gift giving is one of my favorite things to participate in!! One of my mother’s primary love languages is gift giving, and I grew up being spoiled at holidays and birthdays, even though she didn’t have much when I was growing up. She always made sure to prioritize very thoughtful gifts for us kids, and now our spouses and her grandkids.

I don’t want to rain on your parade…or party, or gifts, but this is a real concern when everyone might be handling presents laced with heavy metals that can rub off on your hands, especially little hands that go in mouths frequently.

How many of you hand your presents to the babies and dogs to chew on?? Yeah, that.

Do you toss your wrapping paper into the cozy Christmas morning fire? DON’T! Just don’t!

This is an article from PubMed bout the variety of heavy metals in wrapping paper ink.

Int J Environ Anal Chem. 1979;6(4):321-5.

Colored gift wrapping papers as a potential source of toxic metals.

Bertagnolli JF, Katz SA.

Abstract

Sanitary land fills are the alternate to waste incineration in New Jersey. While industrial waste disposal is controlled, few restrictions apply to the disposal of domestic solid waste. Among the materials of concern from domestic sources are colored gift wrapping papers. Cadmium, chromium, copper, iron, manganese, molybdenum, nickel, lead and zinc were determined in some dozen and a half samples of gift wrapping paper by atomic absorption spectrometry after wet ashing and after simulated leaching. High levels of lead and chromium were found in many of the papers. The leachates showed correspondingly high levels of lead.

PMID: 489218 DOI: 10.1080/03067317908081223

[Indexed for MEDLINE]

Now, let’s keep in mind that this study was done decades ago and we certainly hope that most wrapping paper in the US is safe(ER) at least, but how many of you shop for cheap paper, because you know it will be torn up and thrown out (hand raised)? It’s probably from China which means no regulations. Wrapping paper doesn’t come with an ingredient label, so you really just don’t know which of your sources are safe, or not.

This is from a recent article whereSidney Katz (from the study above) was quoted:

"My concern was what you do with Christmas wrapping papers," says Katz, noting that "if you burn it, you create airborne particulates which are inhaled." 

Or, he says, young children might even chew on the stuff. 

Over the years, Katz says, U.S. manufacturers have switched to safer, alternative pigments. "If it's made by Hallmark and it's made with American pigments, it's probably OK," he says. But he adds that it would be impossible for a consumer to look at gift wrap made overseas and know what pigments are in it. 

Gary Jones is director of environmental, health and safety affairs for a trade group called Printing Industries of America. He says today's printing ink does use safe pigments, but when something is burned, it can change.

"You know, you're not dealing with a pigment at that point — you're looking at what happened as a result of burning a pigment, or burning a metal," Jones says. He says you would not want to breathe that smoke, or really any smoke at all. 

"Just think about fireworks," says Sidney Katz, a chemist who is just starting his retirement after a long career at Rutgers University. He explains that when people watch fireworks on the Fourth of July, "the colored pyrotechnics are different chemical compounds at high temperature." 

Something similar can happen in a fireplace if people burn colored gift wrap. Some metals found in certain ink pigments will react with heat. Barium-based pigments are used in some red ink, for example, and when burned could produce a green flame.

The point here is to be aware, to avoid cheap wrapping papers and if you want to put a little bit of a different spin on your gifts, you can find other ways to avoid wrapping paper inks all together. This is what I did this year.

I chose a simple, neutral theme, which coordinates with my personal style, but you can do anything you’d like with your gifts! Go crazy, add color with punch, personality and pizzaz!

The supplies you will need are:

• recycled brown wrapping paper (I think this roll might last years). If you want to get fancy and make wrapping super duper easy, you could even invest in a paper roll cutter!

• some fun stamps for whatever theme you like , ie - reindeer, North Pole air mail, snowflakes, quotes, etc. Just make sure the ink is smudge proof. My ink wasn’t so I learned the hard way. 😆 These archival ink pads are permanent, acid free and waterproof.

• Something to tie the gifts with: gold and white or silver and white string for a little bling, tulle for softer romantic look, twine for that natural and earthy look, or combine a few! I like to pair black and white ribbon like this or this, with the brown paper wrap, because it has a vintage feel to it. If you want to add some glam, this sparkly silver-snowflake, wired ribbon is a nice compliment to the simplicity of the paper too!

• You can either use labels like mine in the pictures below or you can create a key for stamp labels, like I did for my boys and husband, also pictured below.

You will want to work on a workspace that can get messy. I used an old Amazon box for the stamps. It was an easy way to also transport everything easily so I could spread out. 😛

Now, when you have other gifts to wrap throughout the year like birthday, graduation or anniversary, all you need is a fun stamp or two. Or let the kids color all over the paper for a colorful Comics sort of theme!

You’ll notice I also have a few heart stamps, a green stamp pad and a key for which stamp belongs to each person in our house. We decided to use stamps instead of labels for our own family gifts on Christmas morning. It will be fun for the kids to seek out everyone’s gifts using the key. 👀

In follow up to this blog, a client shared her biofeedback results with me along with an interesting story. She regularly conducts biofeedback scans on her and her three kids. She said that it is very rare for them to see any heavy metals pop up on their scans, unless they are exposed to something specific. For one of her daughter’s birthdays, they were all exposed to the wrapping paper and the next morning, all four of their scans had mercury show up high! They all took zeolite and the scans the following morning had no mercury.

Resources

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/489218

2. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=98476323