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What's the first step in planning a wedding that Mother Nature would approve of? Try sending out recycled wedding invitations, particularly those with a high percentage of post-consumer waste (PCW). This way you'll generate plenty of enthusiastic RSVPs while practicing environmental TLC.

Find it! Recycled wedding invitations

Recycled paper was once difficult to find and meant lower quality. Nowadays, recycled paper is every bit as good as non-recycled and much easier to pin down. More than a handful of stationers are selling sustainable and stylish greeting cards and wedding invitations made from recycled paper.

Before you buy

Choose invites that are either natural in color or tinted with natural dyes and use soy-based inks for printing. Look for invitations with the PCF (processed chlorine free) label, which ensures that the paper has not been treated with environmentally damaging chlorine bleach. Avoid metallic and plastic coated papers, which are usually non-recyclable. Instead, spice up your invite with dried flowers and leaves (ideal for those having a garden wedding) or natural fibers.

Also, make your nuptials even more friendly by sending single sheet cards and ask guests to RSVP via phone or e-mail. And when it comes time to write thank yous for all those great green gifts, opt for recycled notes.

Buying recycled wedding invitations helps you go green because...

• Producing recycled paper requires about 60 percent of the energy used to make paper from virgin wood pulp.[1]
• One ton of recycled paper saves 17 mature trees, 7,000 gallons of water, 3 cubic yards of landfill space, two barrels of oil, and 4,100 kilowatt hours of electricity.[1]
• You'll set the tone for your green wedding. An invitation made out of recycled paper will be your guests' first indication of the environmentally aware wedding you are planning.

Each year, almost 380 million people are invited to the 2.4 million weddings in America.[2] Traditionally, paper invitations and save-the-date cards for these weddings are sent through the mail. Often, paper RSVP cards are included for replying to the couple.

Paper production is responsible for about a fifth of the total wood harvest worldwide, and about 93 percent of today's paper comes from trees.[3] A single sheet of copy or writing paper might contain fibers from hundreds of different trees that have collectively traveled thousands of miles, potentially from timber logged in regions with ecologically valuable, biologically diverse habitat.[3] Buying recycled paper ensures a market for a product that uses 60 percent less energy to produce than regular paper, reduces water pollution by 35 percent, air pollution by 74 percent, and helps preserve forests.[4]

Petroleum-based inks create smog-producing hydrocarbons and metallic inks often contain toxic pigments. Soy-based inks are a renewable resource, biodegradable, and release less than 20 percent of the mass volatile organic chemicals compared to petroleum-based ink.[5]

Controversies

Just because something says “100% recycled” doesn’t necessarily mean it’s so. Some manufacturers use this term when their products actually don’t use any or very little post-consumer waste, but rather, wood chips, mill scraps, and other pre-consumer waste. The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued minimum post-consumer waste guidelines for procuring paper for the federal government, recommending at least 30 percent post-consumer content for most uncoated printing and writing paper.[6] State and local governments, businesses, and organizations have adopted this policy.[7]

Glossary

• post-consumer waste (PCW): A term used to describe the content of a product that comes from products previously used by consumers. In this case, pulp made from paper that consumers recycled.
• pre-consumer waste: A term used to describe remnant components that are by-products of the manufacturing process that are contained in the "new" product, in this case, pulp from wood chips, mill scraps, and other waste left from paper processing.

External links

• Portovert
• Forest Ethics
• Great Green Wedding
• Co-op America's WoodWise Program
• Treecycle - Some Realities and Myths of Recycled Paper