Which is it more environmentally friendly - e-cards or christmas cards?

ANSWER - It has become very popular to use online sites and emails to send cards on special occasions, as it is much easier to personalise them and can often cost less. These e-cards are widely viewed as more eco-friendly than their paper counterparts, as no obvious resources are used in their construction, which helps to protect trees that would have otherwise been cut down in order to be pulped and plastered with grinning pictures of Santa and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. However, there is more to the situation than meets the eye.

While there may be no physical resources involved in the manufacture of e-cards, electricity is used when the e-card is both sent and received, which increases the creation of carbon dioxide (CO₂) and the pollution of our atmosphere. Emails with large attachments such as e-cards can produce up to 54g of CO₂, due both to the electricity consumed by the computer and the electricity used by the servers that send the cards. Therefore, sending e-cards does have an impact on our environment instead of being a completely eco-friendly gesture.

Steps have already been taken to make conventional cards more eco-friendly by organisations such as the Woodland Trust. Many traditional cards are now 100% recyclable, and are easily identifiable as such thanks to informative logos on the back, which help customers to choose cards that will not have a strongly negative impact on the environment. Innovation continues to be made on this front, with some groups now selling cards made out of recycled paper, meaning that no trees were cut down in order to produce them, reducing damage to our forests.

It is also possible to “upcycle” cards, cutting up last year’s stock to create new ones. Furthermore, some stores have introduced initiatives in which trees are planted once a certain number of cards have been deposited in their card recycling bins. This means that the negative impact on our environment caused by greenhouse gas (GHG) absorbing trees being cut down is being negated by these eco-friendly programmes.

However, while there is clearly more to the situation than a simple “E-cards good, traditional cards bad” viewpoint, the benefits of e-cards do ultimately outweigh their cost in CO₂. There will always be traditional cards that will be thrown into the dustbin by those who care little for their impact on the environment. By continuing to encourage a move towards e-cards, less waste will be produced, and there will be no impact on forests. Furthermore, the process involved in recycling the cards itself uses up electricity, meaning that CO₂ will be generated regardless of whether a traditional card or e-card is sent. Therefore, as sending e-cards will encourage a move away from the paper cards that inevitably waste resources and harm the forests, despite the fact that the electricity used in sending e-cards creates GHGs, it would be better to send one if you wish to help protect the environment this Christmas.