The holiday season has often been called a time of goodwill on earth.

There is a growing movement, however, to make the holidays a time of goodwill toward the earth.

One local company has taken an ecologically friendly approach to gift wrapping for over 20 years. Loose Ends, which is owned and operated by Art and Sandi Reinke, specializes in art and craft materials.

Owner Sandi Reinke says that most handmade paper, because it is often created in third-world countries, is made from byproducts such as bark, leaves, and fibers and with dyes that are made of materials such as leaves and leather tannins.

“Generally speaking it is all very ecologically friendly,” she said.

The company also designs its own paper that is produced locally and printed on recycled kraft and often uses water soluble dyes.

Reinke also points out that there are alternatives to traditional paper.

“There are other possibilities that can be used for wrapping and gift presentation that are not actually paper, such as banana fiber, jute, and hemp,” she said.

“You can also use baskets and bamboo containers such as trays or bowls or European market bags that ultimately are a gift in and of themselves. They are great for gifts such as exotic cheese and beer or presenting a bottle of wine.”

“And they look cool,” she added.

Reinke says that it can be a fun and creative process to find earth-friendly alternatives.

“We are very focused on organic, but we also love helping people use their imagination when it comes to gifts; there are alternatives out there,” she said.

Amazon.com recently announced that it is working with retailers in an attempt to reduce the amount of packaging a consumer receives when goods are purchased from their site. The Seattle-based retailer has named this process its “Frustration-Free Packaging Initiative.”

With this initiative Amazon will cease shipping certain items in packaging that at a store is often used as a deterrent to shoplifters, such as large packaging on small memory cards. The company also is planning to begin shipping items in plain brown cardboard boxes instead of putting plastic-sealed items and other preboxed items into a secondary box.

There are other sites that offer ecologically friendly alternatives when it comes to gift wrapping.

One such site is www.greengirlgiftwrap.com.

This site has offered 100 percent recycled wrapping paper since 2007, and states that its goal is to produce high quality, reasonably priced recycled wrapping paper using environmentally friendly processing practices.