Discover An Environmentally Friendly Way Of Buying A Greetings Card

It is thought that using recycled paper and card is beneficial for the environment, some greetings cards are produced using partially or all recycled materials, however, during this process many chemicals are used to bleach the card to a commercially attractive white, and also there is the journey this recycled card makes around the globe before ending up on the shelf of a high street store.

Billions of tonnes of recycled card, and finished greetings cards, are produced in Eastern countries, and is shipped in containers across the seas to the UK, belching out C02 into the atmosphere as the boats that are used burn fossil fuel. The majority of these vessels are decades old, and were not built in a time of environmental conscience, so they are not efficient and run on the planet’s dwindling fossil fuels.

The greetings cards and recycled paper pulp to make greetings cards arrive in the UK in containers and are then offloaded onto diesel lorries. The greetings cards are driven the length and the breadth of the UK to distribution depots, which unpack the containers, and reload onto vans and lorries to distribute to high street shops and supermarkets.

In the UK we send on average 55 cards per person per year. That’s a lot of cards. The most popular annual occasions being Christmas, Valentine’s Day, Mother’s Day and Fathers Day, when these dates pass, the cards are taken off the shelves. Many stores are on a sale or return agreement, so back to the East they go, packed back into containers, and returned to the recycling plant, and the cycle starts all over again.

Consider the benefits of buying FSC accredited card, from sustainable sources, where trees are planted and replaced as the felling takes place. The Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) is founded on inclusive and shared responsibility for setting high social, environmental and economic standards for forest management. This type of card arrives in the UK in huge sheets on pallets and is stored when it arrives at a printing company. There is no need for further distribution by road and rail.

The sister company of Funky Pigeon, (Brunel), is FSC accredited; all of the paper, card and packaging that is used is sustainably sourced. The Company is the B2B side of the business, producing and printing hundreds of thousands of personalised calendars and corporate greetings cards every year for companies in the UK.

A websites and technology continually improve, many greetings card orders are taken online. Consumers take advantage of software that enables consumers to personalise a card, as opposed to a mass-produced card on a rack in a store with the same stock design. Personalisation has reached new levels, with photo upload, and image manipulation allowing any text to appear in thousands of designs on file. In this way the consumer has the freedom to create a keepsake card which is unique to them.

When the order is placed, the design is sent to the printers that print to order. Sheets are printed, cut and folded, and best of all, no waste is produced. The card is then sent direct to the recipient using the UK’s most efficient postal service, the Royal Mail.

So, the next time you are browsing a greetings card in a high street shop, take a moment to consider whether you would benefit from using an online personalised greetings card company like www.funkypigeon.com. This website has a print on demand ordering system producing personalised cards, posters and calendars which are environmentally friendly and also offer the consumer total control when designing a card online.

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