E-nvironmentally Friendly Greetings Cards...
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There are a lot of interesting statistics about traditional greetings cards and from an environmental point of view they make some pretty tragic reading. Research shows that each household in the United States receives about 80 cards a year. This seems an extraordinarily large amount but when you consider that there are over 1,500 large greetings card manufacturers producing over seven billion cards a year then it begins to make more sense. In the United Kingdom there are two billion cards a year bought and sent. All of these card companies go out of their way to try and make sure that there is a market for their products; they create birthday cards for pets, cards to congratulate people for passing their driving test, cards to congratulate not only for a new baby but also for being a new parent, grandparent, brother, sister, uncle, aunt and godparent. There are smaller niche companies that specialise in well targeted areas such as cards congratulating people on hitting their target weight loss, getting sacked from work or simply various low-volume sale cards for different religions.
The traditional greetings card is made out of relatively expensive cardboard. These products by definition need to look classy and expensive. Generally they are made out of wood pulp or rag pulp but there is an increasing market for more and more recycled materials in cards. Because these cards have to feel expensive the paper is bleached to make it whiter and then it is usually coated with a glossy coating to make it shiny. The inks used to print the cards are traditionally oil based though a lot of companies are moving towards soy based inks in which are a little easier to recycle and release less toxins into the air than the more traditional inks. Ultimately a huge percentage of the card stock paper comes from wood pulp from virgin trees and the ink used in whatever form does still release toxins.
However you look at it and however much recycled materials goes into these cards that is a lot of paper, a lot of printing and a lot of ink. There is also the huge cost of transporting them around the planet. If we take a low estimate of the weight of a greetings card and envelope as being 20g, then the 7 billion cards in the United States and the 2 billion in the United Kingdom weigh in at a staggering 180,000 metric tonnes of cards.
Thankfully, there is an alternative. The E Card is gaining in popularity and the good thing about the E Card is that it weighs nothing, uses no paper and no toxic inks and it doesn’t require any trucks, cars or aeroplanes to deliver. There are other advantages too, such as the fact that they are always up to date and topical and they are delivered instantly to a person’s mobile phone and create no waste to clean up when they are thrown away. E Cards make excellent sense, not just to the sender and the recipient but also for the environment. |
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Author Resource:-
The Article is written by cardcube.com/ providing Online Birthday Cards and E Cards Services. Visit http://www.cardcube.com for more information on cardcube.com/Products & Services.
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By :
Alex Fernandez
Submitted
2010-07-23 01:45:09 |
Article From Article Mayhem
 Ezine ready view |
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