Get creative with your cast-offs: sustainable wrapping for food gifts

Forage at home for forgotten or discarded items, and you can present homemade food gifts in colourful, low-waste trappingsI love making food gifts - jam, biscuits, chocolates and the like - but how can I wrap them sustainably?Emily, Stroud"We love this time of year, but packaging waste does rear its ugly head," say Anshu Ahuja and Renee Williams, the duo behind DabbaDrop in London, a vegan takeaway that delivers by bike in eco packaging. And they're not kidding: according to specialists Challenge Boxes & Packaging, "in the UK at Christmas time, we use a staggering 338,251 tonnes of cardboard packaging, 35,877 tonnes of plastic and 269,423 miles of wrapping paper".So when it comes to homemade gifts, the thing to remember is that new isn't always better. First, look at what you've already got around - bits of fabric or reusable cotton cloths, say, can easily be turned into wrapping, Ahuja and Williams say, and you can "have fun using different layers and colours". Newspaper or sheets torn from your, ahem, favourite supplement will also see you right. "The joy of that is they'll get a free recipe, too," says Sadhbh Moore, co-author, with Abi Aspen Glencross, of Sustainable Kitchen. And if you've got any greaseproof paper to hand, twirl squares of the stuff around a tower of biscuits, for instance - "Much as you would with a bottle of wine," Moore explains - for a good plastic-free alternative to clingfilm although, granted, that does come with a single-use issue. Continue reading...