Earth-Friendly Holiday Greetings

This season, send earth-friendly holiday greetings by using e-cards or cards made from recycled paper. E-cards consume few material and energy resources, and are a great way to reach your Internet-savvy family, friends, and colleagues. Sometimes, however, there's no substitute for a hand-written card to convey the warmth and spirit of the holiday season. When e-greetings are not an option, choose cards that use soy-based inks and post-consumer recycled paper that has been bleached without chlorine.

You can send holiday e-cards by visiting the following websites, which allow you to send your greetings for free:

Care2 has over 25,000 free e-cards and you will not waste a tree:
www.care2.com/send/catholiday.html

The Center for a New American Dream offers a Simplify the Holidays website, that lets you upload your own image to create an e-card:
www.newdream.org/greetingcardpro/

RedJellyfish's e-cards look like actual postcards and are a snap to create:
www.redjellyfish.com/ecardsinfo.html

E-Cards offers online greetings with global, educational, and environmental twists and 5% of all E-Card revenues are donated to organizations supporting nature and the environment!
www.e-cards.com

EcologyFund's cards have beautifully designed wilderness images:
www.ecologyfund.com/registry/ecology/ecards_home.html

To purchase greeting cards made from recycled paper, visit your local card store and look for cards with the Recycled Paper symbol. Look for high percentages of post-consumer waste, and also look for the PCF logo (processed chlorine-free, meaning no further chlorine bleaching of recycled source paper has occured). The Internet also offers a wide array of choices when it comes to recycled greetings:

National Wildlife Federation's cards have beautiful nature and animal images and are printed on recycled paper:
store.yahoo.com/nationalwildlife/fallcards.html

At Gaiam, choose from two designs, Holiday Tree and Snowman. Both are printed with soy-based inks on paper that is 50% recycled, 10% post-consumer waste:
www.gaiam.com/retail/product.asp?product%5Fid=07%2D0337+MSTR

Your purchase of some "Worldwide Favorite GoodThings" cards from GoodThings.com supports organizations chosen by the people whose words are featured on the cards:
www.goodthings.com/03_07_cardstore_hol.asp

All the cards and envelopes at Doodle Greetings are made of 100% post-consumer recycled paper:
doodlegreetings.bcentralhost.com/CatalogHolidayCards/HolidayCards_catalog.htm

Abundant Earth's holiday greeting cards are made with 50% post-consumer recycled paper and use all natural vegetable inks:
www.abundantearth.com/store/holidaycards.html

You can also save trees by purchasing cards made of tree-free paper. Hemp is an excellent choice: hemp requires fewer resources and pesticides than do trees, and hemp fibers can be recycled more often than paper made from wood - or choose kenaf, which grows rapidly and renewably, also with few inputs and low impact.

Ylana's Network for Self-Empowerment and Sustainable Non-Toxic Living sells a variety of tree-saving greeting cards, made from 100% recycled paper:
www.ylana.com/pevolcards.htm (with 25 % hemp fiber content) or www.ylana.com/pevolcartea.htm (with tea leaves fiber content).

Calavaria offers cards made from 90-percent post-consumer waste and 10-percent hemp:
www.calavaria.com

The American Kenaf Society's website offers nine different greeting card designs made from kenaf paper:
www.kenafsociety.org/AKScards.htm

Celebrate the holiday season with the Holiday Greeting Cards Collection from Our Simple Joys, which feature handmade cards with pressed holly and juniper leaves:
oursimplejoys.com/keepsakes/seizetheday.html

Plant a card and watch it grow! Receive the award winning Grow-A-Note® seed paper cards free with every order from the Green Field Paper Company, which specializes in tree-free paper products and greeting cards:
www.greenfieldpaper.com

Use your own creativity and customize 100% recycled tree-free hemp paper cards from Hemp Utopia:
www.canada-shops.com/magasin/hemputopia/c6322p9547972.2.html