Printing cards at home saves money and the environment
In these tough economic times, finding ways to save money here and there has become a new fashion. People are always looking for ways to save and one way is to print your own greeting cards. You can make your own birthday cards, Christmas cards, Mother’s Day cards, Father’s Day cards and more right online for free.
Printers provide much better printout these days than years prior and you can make a beautiful card with your photo or print any number of ready-to-print templates off sites from the Net.
Print With My Pic offers card templates that let you add your photo right to the card, edit the photo online, change and even move the text around. You get an instant preview and then hit print. All for free.
If you don’t want to use your own photo, check out MES Cards. There are hundreds of card templates in various themes that also allow you to add your own custom message to the cards. Again all for free. Neither of the sites require account registration, email list sign-up or anything like that. No downloads, everything is done online.
So, we see how it saves the pocket, but how is printing your own birthday card “green”?
It limits excess for one. generally people tend to buy in quantities that are both more affordable (per card) and quantities that exceed the amount of cards you need. Beyond that we tend to estimate higher than we actually need just so that we don’t run out. So, by printing your own cards, you limit the excess that becomes trash, as well as save the money that would have been spent on “trash”.
Reduction in travel based pollution. Well, it’s admittedly a small step but if it catches on maybe it will reduce some fuel consumption. Many of the cheaper card sets and card printers on the Net use printers and printing companies based out of China. The wood is harvested in one country, shipped around the world and made into paper somewhere. It might then be shipped to China where it’s printed and then shipped back across the globe to you. Or, it may be shipped to a store where you then drive to and select the one you want. It could be shipped to some company that stocks the cards and then ships to you upon ordering. That transit time on all fronts uses energy, wears out equipment, tires and creates waste that inevitably strains the environment as both pollution and trash.
While you won’t really be making an impact on the paper industry and deforestation, you will be helping the environment by contributing to the local economy where you deal within your neighborhood and aren’t fueling more cross-continent commercialism. Of course these internet sites aren’t physically located where you are, but since everything is done online, they might as well be in your living room. You can also choose to use recycled paper or paper made with bamboo pulp. That decision is up to you.
It’s not much, but by making all the little changes and doing all of the little things that we can do, over time and with enough people doing it, big change can happen.