Greetings cards are made of...card. But unfortunately many come wrapped in plastic. Many come covered in plastic-glitter. Many have shiny gold or silver foil decoration on. Many have plastic googly eyes attached. Many have ribbons or sequins or foam shapes or polyester pom-poms on them.
Most cards are not recyclable. When you put any of the above cards into your recycling bin, they contaminate the load - potentially meaning that the whole lot ends up unusable.
So please choose your greetings cards with care.
Cards are becoming available 'naked' without a plastic wrapper. M&S sells an unwrapped range. The Card Factory sells most of its cards without plastic. The Works has a range of plastic-wrap-free cards. The three cards pictured come from the three shops mentioned.
What about Christmas cards? More and more people don't send Christmas cards at all, instead choosing to donate the money they would've spent to charity. Whatever your thoughts on sending Christmas cards, please make sure that you deal carefully with the ones you receive. Reuse what you can (as gift tags etc) and then recycle the rest carefully - removing any adornments / glittery parts / foil sections first.
Out there perhaps is the holy grail of; reasonably-priced, unwrapped, plastic-adornment-free, foil-less, FSC-approved recycled cards, which donate to charity through their purchase, obtainable from shops we visit regularly...hmmm.