Wrapped in Waste: Wasteful Holiday Greetings
“Happy Holidays!” “Thinking of You” “Season’s Greetings” and the wishes go on and
on, but really is sending a piece of paper waste to your friends and family the
way you want to send your holiday wishes?
Do you buy into holiday propriety or as it is also called “tradition”
by sending out Holiday Greeting cards to everyone in your address book, wasting
time, money, and paper all for something that ends up in the trash by New
Years? Well if you are like most Americans, you fear the possibility of being
viewed as inconsiderate if you do not send out these wonderful wastes of paper
on time to all your acquaintances, some of which you may not even speak to on a
monthly basis. Wow, the extents that we will go to to comply with social
standards!
We buy cards for everything: Birthdays, Holidays,
Remembrances, Sympathy, Anniversaries, Love, Hate, Just Because, Laughs, etc. But
the amount of trash all these cards generate is nothing to celebrate. In the
United States about 7 billion, yes billion with a B, greeting cards are purchased and thrown
away annually. Not only are these cards little gold nuggets, known as being one
of the most overpriced “traditions” out there, they also attribute to a huge amount of
holiday trash! There really is nothing comforting about knowing that all of
your time, efforts, and money are thrown away and not admired despite your
efforts to conform with holiday traditions!
So what to do about sending and receiving your holiday
wishes? Well, rather than wasting significant amounts of time and money by
buying a bunch of paper that is just going to be thrown away, try the following
to reduce your spending and your holiday paper waste.
-Use e-cards! You can send a card electronically to everyone
in your address book with one click and no paper, postage, etc.! These cards can
be personalized and will allow you to keep up with the social tradition of
sending greeting cards. The following sites offer e cards at little to no cost
AND no waste!
-Make your own cards out of paper scraps around the house-you
can even use bits and pieces of old cards you have received in the past to make
new cards! This reduces the amount of waste that you throw away and is an
effective way to recycle your old cards!
-Reduce the number of cards you send and only send cards to those
you really associate with. Think about it, do some of the recipients of your
cards really know who you are? Do you really care what they think about you so
much that you go out of your way to send them paper waste for the holiday?
-Don’t send any cards at all! In today’s world of social
media, do you really need to send a card to let them know you care? Probably
not! Post your greetings on their Facebook or other social media page. If you
are like most Americans, you probably are already spending more than 7 hours a
month on Facebook already!
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