Why Choose Eco-Friendly Cards

Mar 11, 2014

Eco-Friendly cards aren’t just good for the environment

Last year, the International Card Manufacturers Association reported that more than 20 billion plastic cards were produced worldwide. More than 10 billion gift cards have been made every year since 2006, and their popularity continues to rise. The compact, portable cards are favorite gifts among American consumers because of their flexibility, value, and purchasing power. The environmental impact of these cards, however, isn’t always as bright. Most spent cards make their way to landfills, adding millions of pounds of plastic and PVC to the waste stream. 10 billion gift cards, the equivalent of just one year of average card sales, can add nearly 100 million pounds of PVC to the world’s landfills. Choosing eco-friendly gift card alternatives could help slow the flow of plastic into garbage cans across the globe.

There are more reasons than environmental responsibility to choose eco-friendly cards, however. A more educated customer base is choosing more green and eco-friendly products on a regular basis. High quality, recyclable cards are available, as are biodegradable card materials that put fewer toxins into the environment, and put smiles on environmentally conscious consumers’ faces. Some alternative card materials include paper, corn, recycled PVC, and Teslin.

PETG and ABS: Alternative Eco-Friendly Card Plastics

If it looks like PVC, feels like PVC, and performs like PVC, it must be PVC, right? Not the case with some recycled plastics. A promising option for more eco-friendly gift cards is polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG). Derived from polyester, PETG is 100 percent recyclable, biodegradable, and non-gaseous. PETG is also easily customizable because of its superior strength and flexibility qualities.

Eco-friendly plastic options don’t stop there. Acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) plastic is a recycled plastic compound that is itself entirely recyclable. ABS is also widely considered to be a more durable, longer lasting, and easier to recycle plastic than PVC.

Bio Plastics

Cards made from organic materials and renewable resources with plastic qualities are referred to as bio plastics. These cards are biodegradable, compostable, and considered environmentally friendly because of their non-petroleum based materials. Proponents of bio plastics site that PVC can produce toxins and carcinogens like residue from chlorine, heavy metals, dioxins and hydrogen chloride. Bio plastics are considered non-toxic while providing similar benefits of plastic cards.

Whatever material you decide to print your eco-friendly cards on, you will be doing a service to the environment, and to your environmentally conscious customer base.

Browser eco-friendly cards offered by Plastic Resoruce