Can Greeting Cards Be Recycled In The UK?

Greeting cards are a big part of our culture, which are sent for various occasions, including birthday, Christmas, engagements, new jobs, etc.

So it should come as no surprise that the sentiment card industry is worth £1.5bn, according to figures by Ofcom.

There is a greetings card for any important moment in our lives, from cradle to grave. So given the amount of cards that are sent/given throughout the year, it’s worth wondering how they should be disposed of.

Can greeting cards be recycled or do they have to be put in the general waste bin? We answer this question and look more closely at the overall environmental impact of greeting cards.

Beware Of Glitter, Foil & Co

While generally speaking you can recycle cards in the UK, this is only true if they are made purely from paper.

But today so many cards are embellished, with things like glitter, foil, ribbons, and the like. As these embellishments aren’t made from paper, these greeting cards can’t be recycled at home.

You can however, bring them to most Household Recycling Centres, where they can be recycled. Check the website of your local authority to find the nearest centre that will accept such greeting cards.

If you can’t access such a recycling centre, you have to dispose of any cards with glitter, foil or ribbons in your general waste bin.

Equally, if you receive a musical card or one with lights, remove the electronic part of the card before disposing of it appropriately.

The electronic components can be recycled with other small electronic appliances at your local recycling centre.

As you can imagine, many cards end up in landfill, because it’s easier to throw them into the general waste bin than bringing them to a recycling centre.

And even the ones that could be recycled often still end up in waste. According to National Recycling, 26% of what’s in landfills globally is paper. Of the 12.5 million tonnes of paper and cardboard used in the UK every year, only 8 million tonnes are recycled, the same statistic estimate.

Some of this paper will be Christmas and other cards that were binned rather than recycled.

So make sure you dispose of any cards that can be recycled in your recycling bin to keep recyclable paper out of landfill.

The Full Environmental Impact Of Christmas Cards And Co

But that fact that many greetings cards can’t be or just aren’t recycled is only part of the story. There are other reasons sentiment cards have quite a big environmental impact.

But before we shed light on them, let’s look at some statistics to get an idea of the problem we are dealing with:

Some estimates suggest that we buy 2 billion greetings cards in the UK every year
1 billion Christmas cards are thrown away in the UK yearly
One tree produces around 3,000 cards – this means we would need over 500,000 trees to produce the 2bn cards bought in the UK each year
The average Brit buys 31 cards per year

According to a study by Exeter University, the carbon footprint of sending a card, such as a birthday card, is 140g carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e). Assuming the card was printed on recycled paper, was sent as a 10g letter within the UK and recycled in this country.

Most greeting cards probably weigh more than 10g though, so this is a cautious estimate. If the card wasn’t printed on virgin paper (i.e not recycled but newly made paper), sent within the USA and not recycled, the carbon footprint would be 200g CO2e.

If this doesn’t mean much to you, you’re not alone. I wasn’t sure what that meant when I first read it. The study provides the carbon footprint of other activities for comparison, which is useful.

A return flight from London to Glasgow has 500kg CO2e and a new car has a carbon footprint of 17 tonnes CO2e.

So sending a card doesn’t seem to have a very big carbon footprint. But if you consider how many we send, it changes.

A billion cards sent have a carbon footprint of 140 million CO2e, which is the equivalent of producing 5,882 medium-sized cars.

So our Christmas cards alone have a huge carbon footprint taken all together. And we have to double that to reach the number of cards that are sent in the whole year.

The environmental impact of greetings cards derives from manufacturing them, posting them, printing, and their disposal, according to the above mentioned Exeter University study.

So let’s look at these four impacts individually.

Producing Greeting Cards

paper production starts with cutting down trees

Because cards are mostly made of paper, we have to look at paper production to find out what impact it has on the environment.

First, to make paper you need cellulose fibre, 93% of which comes from trees. And because of the high demand for paper, this leads to deforestation, with 42% of all wood that is harvested globally being used for paper production. (Jiang et al. 2021)

Deforestation is one of the drivers of climate change, so this has a direct impact on our environment.

Paper production is also an energy-intensive process, which leads to high greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. The pulp making process has the highest environmental impact, with 50%. It uses the most energy and is responsible for 62% of energy use and 49% of GHG emissions. (Sun et al., 2018)

Greenhouse gas emissions are the main driver for global warming, which causes climate change. If we want to keep to the Paris Agreement target, we have to bring down GHG emissions.

Apart from greenhouse gases, the paper and pulp industry also releases toxic chemicals into the air and water, causing harm and even death to aquatic life. (Jiang et al. 2021)

Chemical pollution, whether of water or air, is a huge problem for our environment, leading to biodiversity loss, which exacerbates climate change.

Using recycled paper instead of virgin paper reduces the energy demand by about 50%, reducing the carbon footprint of greeting cards made from recycled paper by a significant amount.

This shows the importance of the question “can greeting cards be recycled?”, because the more paper we recycle the better for the environment.

Printing Sentiment Cards

While printing is only responsible for a small part of the carbon footprint of greetings cards, the printing industry has quite a large one.

This is mostly due to the chemicals used in the ink and during the printing process. Most oft these chemicals please volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as well as other air pollutants. (Aydemir & Özsoy, 2020)

When the ink ends up in landfill, it can lead to air as well as water pollution.

Chemical pollution is a huge problem for the environment, because it can cause harm to ecosystems, make habitats uninhabitable and cause biodiversity loss.

Posting Greeting Cards

While not all cards are posted, for those that are, postage will be the biggest contributor to the carbon footprint.

This is due to the emissions caused by transport, either by van, train, or plane for international mail, as well as the energy used in the sorting offices, according to the Exeter University study.

So not posting your greetings card will reduce its carbon footprint.

Disposal Of Cards

Although paper is a recyclable material, about 30% of paper isn’t put in home recycling bins and therefore not recycled in the UK.

As we have seen, many sentiment cards can’t be recycled because they contain other materials such as glitter, foil, or electrical equipment such as batteries.

If paper ends up in landfill, it takes between 5 to 15 years to break down. And while this is much quicker than plastic, paper will release methane as it breaks down, a greenhouse gas contributing to global warming.

One issue with birthday cards and other types of sentiment cards is that they are basically a single-use item. It might be put up for a week or so aver the event that is celebrated, but after that it becomes useless and is thrown away, hopefully in a recycling bin.

The nature of cards is that they can’t be reused and are more difficult to repurpose than other items. Although you could make gift tags out of them, but these can then only be used once again.

All this leads us to the question…

Is It Time Stop Giving Greeting Cards?

Given how big a part they are in our culture, to answer this questions with a firm yes, would be difficult. However, I do believe that we need to put in more thought before buying greeting cards.

For example, is it really necessary to give a Christmas card to everyone in the office, even the colleagues you hardly talk to? It’s a nice thought, but it comes at a cost to the environment and your pocket.

Why not send an electronic one this year? And instead of sending or giving someone a card to celebrate their new home, buy them a houseplant instead. It’s a living thing that will bring them joy year after year without the environmental impact.

If you do want to buy a card for a special occasion, make sure:

It’s made from pure paper, no glitter and the like
It’s made from recycled paper
Encourage the person you gave it to to recycle it or make a gift tag out of it

And while you can’t control what other people do, there is no harm telling people you rather not want a Christmas or birthday card this year. But if they want to give you one, ask them to make sure it’s recyclable and made from recycled paper.

Some people might not understand, others will. But what’s important is that you tried to make a difference for our environment. And that’s what matters.

So here you have it, you now know greeting cards can be recycled in most cases. Now we just have to make sure we dot whenever possible.

If you found this article interesting, maybe these other ones around the topic of gifting and decorations might interest you: