Ecards vs. Traditional Greeting Cards
Each and every year, Americans throw away 85,000,000 pounds of paper products per year, or about 680 pounds per person. We throw away enough paper and wood products per year to heat 50,000,000 homes for 20 years!
Americans send and then throw away enough holiday cards to fill a football field 10 stories high!
The ecard is an alternative to this tradition that is a lot more eco-friendly.
There are many sites all over the internet that will allow you to send an ecard for free. It is really as simple as finding the card that you like best and sending it to your address book. In a few clicks, you can send out a card you have chosen and personalized with your own message. You have not purchased anything - no cards, no envelopes, no stamps, no gas to drive to the store and the post office. There is nothing to end up in a landfill.
Ecards can be interactive. Many sites will allow you to add your own photos and greetings. Some have songs, games and more. Why send a boring old holiday card through the mail when you can send one via email that sings to the recipient?
In addition to sending an ecard, you could send a newsletter via email. Holiday newsletters are very popular and are a great way to keep everyone you know updated on your family news. Newsletters can be personalized with pictures, kids drawings that you have scanned, audio, vidoe or anything else that you can think of.
Sending a printed newsletter contributes to that 680 pounds of paper products, but sending an electronic newsletter via email does not consume any paper.
I don't know about you, but, in all honesty, I hate to get photo holiday cards. I really don't want a physical picture of somebody's kids that I haven't ever met. I'm not going to hang it up or put it in an album. It's not that I don't have any interest in seeing the children of friends or family that I don't see regularly, I just don't need the actual picture. I would far rather receive a picture via email.
Why stop at Christmas? Why not send ecards for any occassion that you would normally send a regular card for? Ecards for birthdays, get well, congratulations can all be found on the internet. Below is just a small sampling of sites that will allow you to send free ecards.
Hallmark
American Greetings
123 Greetings
My Fun Cards
BlueMountain
