PAPER PLASTIC WITH THAT ?

Plastic-lid boxes are already lining the holiday aisles at our local stores,with hundreds of paper Christmas greetings to choose from.But, the 150-year old tradition of Christmas cards just got harder.According to an article published by USA Today, the “blanket” Christmas cardno longer suffices, as it does not allow for personalization.Now imagine sending out a small number, like 100 different cards to 100different people, on top of the shopping that is required for those who aregetting gifts and to make sure Santa has everything on the list.And now imagine personalizing each card, from the type of card to themessage inside, for each of those 100 people on your list. This small taskjust got daunting, didn’t it?!According to Hallmark, 2 billion paper cards will be sent this Christmas!Now that is a heck of a lot of trees, wouldn’t you agree?Other environmentally damaging manufacturing practices are used ingenerating paper greetings, and that includes toxic printer inks. There isalso energy being used and pollution generated to produce, deliver, sale andre-deliver these cards.So where do electronic greetings fit in? For those who would like to save afew thousand trees, provide that personal greeting and create aself-maintained address book/checklist, online greetings are a great option.In the USA Today article, Jamie Shaw, who lives in Utah and Rio de Janeiro,says she couldn't keep track of all her friends' addresses to send each aphysical card, and with electronic cards she can customize different e-cardsfor different recipients.So what happens when you receive a paper greeting? Well, if you aren’t apack rat, then we recommend that if there is a mixed-paper recycling programnear you, you can just put your old greeting cards in with those oldnewspapers and magazines, and join the force of online greetings