Countdown to a Green Valentine’s Day - Day 3

Posted by A. Caleb Hartley on February 11th, 2008 filed in paper

What shall we discuss cliche… er - today?

How about Valentine’s Day cards? 

About 25% of the greeting cards sent in the course of a year are sent on Valentine’s Day, according to Green Living Tips.  That adds up to approximately one billion cards worldwide, says treehugger.com.  Most cards are made of virgin paper, which is very wasteful.

So this year, instead of sending or giving a standard Valentine’s Day card, how about sending a tree-free or recycled card? All it takes is a little bit of extra work while you are selecting a card.  Most cards will say right on the back of the card whether they are made from recycled or tree-free paper. 

Green Living Tips has a wonderful listing of tree alternatives that paper can be made out of.  Additionally, if you are looking at recycled cards instead of tree-free, try to find the highest post-consumer content card possible.  The post-consumer content amount tells you what percentage of the paper was made using paper that has already been used.  100% post-consumer content means that the paper that makes up the card was recycled completely from paper that has already lived through one “useful life,” and has been turned into another.

Here are a few places where tree-free or recycled (or otherwise green) cards may be purchased; not all of these links have Valentine’s cards specifically:

• Tree-Free Greetings
• Green Field Paper Company
• Bloomin’ Flower Cards
• Paporganics

Namaste,
A. Caleb Hartley

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Drop a comment on my blog at the same time you drop your cards in the mail - let’s see which on arrives first!

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