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Do Ecards REALLY Mean
Green Cards?
The shortest, and really
good news for the Planet, answer is YES!
If you have any
environmental awareness at all you have
probably been in a terrible dilemma this
Christmas. Should you send everyone
Ecards as opposed to the traditional
paper variety? Sending zero cards is
definitely the greenest option, but not
exactly a sociable or festive option. OK
so you have always chosen, written and
posted what 100, 200 paper printed
cards? Yet you have felt very guilty on
the one hand about chopping down tress
and on the other about appearing
'Scrooge-like'.
If you are already
committed to using Ecards then carry on
the good work and go read something else
because I'm going to make the ecological
case for switching to Ecards. Do we know
for sure which is greener - Ecards or
printed paper cards? Well yes we do.
Look at the following investigation done
by treehugger.com.
Ecards use less energy,
rain forest resources!
Treehugger took the same
batch of 50-cards and calculated, in
order to compare, the energy, emissions
and waste of Ecards with the traditional
method. Imagine you post out 50 paper
cards, that will take around 2 to 5
minutes per card to select, write and
allocate to their recipients. Then
Treehugger assumed 2 to 3 hours of time
spent on line to email out the same
Ecards. According to Treehugger.com the
typical laptop computer consumes between
65 - 250 watts of electricity. Using an
online electricity usage calculator at
the 'Mr. Electricity' (Yes you can do
this test for yourself if you don't
believe us) website shows a laptop using
roughly the equivalent of .1 kWh for two
and a half of usage, and a mean of 1.37
lbs carbon dioxide per hour. Those 3-4
lbs of CO2 and small costs of
electricity are a mere fraction of the
amounts ascribed to printed paper cards.
OK so the comparisons are only rough
and ready but the difference is very
significant.
For an enormous selection
of Christmas themed Ecards, head over to
<your company name here> where
each Ecard conserves a little of the
rain forest, saves a little greenhouse
gas emission because the E card is
definitely more ecologically sound than
a print paper card.
Ecards can also be used
for charity donations or ecological
donations to the third World. If you
could do it with a print paper card you
can do it with an Ecard and ease your
conscience at the same time, so happy
holiday making. Ecards are more
energy-efficient than paper cards so you
are not only being thoughtful towards
the intended recipient of the Ecard you
are being a responsible World citizen to
boot.
A final word then for
those people who cannot imagine not
sending a tactile tree killer to their
family or special loved ones. How about
just printing out your favorite and
special Ecards and delivering them by
hand at the next opportunity, minus the
envelope of course. |
