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Recycle With Green Greeting Cards |
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Written by Webmaster
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Friday, 23 January 2009 |
By Victor Epand
 According to the Greeting Card Association, over ninety one percent of all house holds in the United States buy greeting cards each year at some point. In fact, with American consumers purchasing approximately seven billion greeting cards each year.
In the United Kingdom, a typical year will see over two billion cards sold. Between just those two countries, if the purchased cards were aligned end to end, then they would stretch around the world fifty four times. Greeting cards have the ability to bring many people joy by lifting their spirits, wishing them well, and adding to celebratory events.
However, beyond the typically gouge me prices that all of us seem to pay when we go out and purchase a paper greeting card, then are there any other drawbacks to this global blizzard of snail mailed greeting cards? Yep, and we will lay those out, but lest you think we are about to tell you that greeting cards are evil and you should stop sending them, let us reassure you that this is not the case. In fact, you will still be required
to send Grandma Gertie and other important people in your life the occasional reminders that you love them.
There is, however, a more environmentally conscious way to do it, but there are problems with paper greeting cards that use virgin paper and other resource use. The billions and billions of greeting cards the people of the world use each year require a lot of paper. While there are some greeting card manufacturers using recycled paper for their greeting cards, it is fair to say that recycled paper is not a big focus in the industry.
Other environmentally damaging manufacturing practices are often used to make paper greeting cards, such as toxic printer inks and fixing agents. Again, there are some manufacturers that are using less toxic alternatives, but even in the best case, there is still energy being used and some level of pollution generated to produce the pretty paper greeting cards.
Even though your local mail carrier would usually have some thing else to deliver to your mailbox any way, the sheer massive weight of all of those greeting cards mailed annually can add up to the fuel consumption requirements associated with shipping them by eighteen wheeler, plane, and mail truck. Some greeting cards get saved forever, but not most, because people just do not the closet space. Sooner or later, our heart felt greeting cards go to land fills or recycling centers. Even in the better latter case, there are energy and pollution costs associated with transporting and converting the old greeting cards into reusable paper.
Now, to be fair, these issues are true for just about any manufactured product. Every thing that gets made, used, and disposed of has energy and pollution costs, so the bottom line really is that can we find greener ways to do the things we find useful or pleasurable? In the case of greeting cards, there are such solutions.
Victor Epand is an expert consultant for personalized gifts, invitations, and fine jewelry. Find the best shopping for personalized gifts, recycled greetings, and fine jewelry.
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Last Updated ( Friday, 23 January 2009 )
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