While staring at bag after bag of crumpled wrapping paper that inevitably follows the xmas blitz, I began to wonder about the possibilities of recycling. What is the best use for all that stuff? Can I compost it? Will the glossyness prevent it from breaking down? What about all the chemicals used in the dyes and colors? Will the recycling company take it? Will they actually recycle it?

Along those lines, I started to think about what I could do to minimize my paper footprint over the coming year. I get an insane amount of junk mail. Mostly credit card applications, home mortgage offers and catalogs. I get a LOT of catalogs. Just before xmas I started piling them up and had to stop when the pile threatened to collapse and bury my kids alive. The thought of coming home to a missing child and having to call the disaster recovery crews to dig through the landslide of catalogs to find her chilled my heart.

I digress. My thought was that perhaps I could shred all those bills junk mail, and create my own paper. How hard could it be? Soak the shreds in water for a while, pulverize them, then pound the ensuing mush flat and let dry in the sun. Perhaps I could use the resulting paper to wrap all the gifts next xmas.

What do you think? Too ambitious? And then there’s the question of catalogs. Will the above plan work for those slick publications? More research to follow.

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