Clearwater, Florida, September 4, 2007 - Direct-mail postcard marketing company, PostcardMania switched its large paper use from virgin paper to a more expensive recycled environmental paper, called Kallima. By absorbing the higher cost ($50K in 2005, $65K in 2006; $85K in 2007) yet keeping the price the same for her customers, CEO Joy Gendusa said she felt industry leaders needed to set a better example today and make the business game more about what you can do for the environment.
PostcardMania's recycled paper is distributed by New Leaf Paper (www.newleafpaper.com). It's made with 10% post-consumer waste and is chlorine free. The Environmental Defense and other members of the Paper Task Force calculated that PostcardMania has saved 5,931 fully grown trees since they started printing on the recycled paper stock in 2005. PostcardMania execs say the paper actually makes the end product look better due to the fact that it holds the ink more effectively.
Despite rapid expansion in to the multi-millions and the need to watch costs, PostcardMania CEO decided to take look to see what could be done to conserve on all her paper usage and waste. Her manufacturing plant also recycles paper waste with Accurate Paper Recycling, Inc. and has been able to recycle 2,931,700 pounds of paper equating to 1,465 tons of paper which equates to 24,905 trees saved since August 2005. Their combined recycling projects have saved over 30,000 trees to date.
"The savings is directed toward the forests; "said Gendusa. ".the more successful we got, the more I felt the need to do something."
Conservatree (www.conservatree.org), a non-profit organization dedicated to converting paper markets to environmental papers has calculated that Cosmopolitan magazine, which uses 328,577 trees every year, could save at least 32,858 trees a year by switching to competitively priced recycled paper offering the same performance as virgin paper. Geocities.com determined that using recycled paper for one print run of the Sunday edition of the New York Times would save 75,000 trees.
Costing more to be environmentally friendly yet not charging more to the customers appears to be, for PostcardMania, the green thing to do.