Now that the holidays are over, it’s time to start thinking about thank yous. Do you write thank yous? I know a lot of people don’t these days, but we try to. A big reason used to be that we lived so far away from families. We couldn’t say thank you in person, so we sent a short note.

But I know that to many, that just adds another element of waste. This year, I had been thinking about sending out thank you emails to most people, but then I received a sample of some really cool greeting cards from ReProduct. These cards  are called No Waste Greeting Cards and solve the problem of wasting all that paper on cards and envelopes.

That’s because once the recipient recieves your thank you, they can then mail it to Shaw Carpets in a really cool postage paid envelope that’s included with the card. One hundred percent of the card will be recycled to make carpets.

How cool is that?

The envelope is a two-way envelope, similar to Netflix envelopes. You fold it one way to mail it out, and the recipient folds it another way to mail it to Shaw — the postage for this trip is already paid.

Shaw will then use all of the card and envelope to make carpet tiles.

The cards come in packs of 18, and cost $29.95. If thank you notes for presents aren’t your thing, these would make great thank you notes after a job interview.

You can also make custom photo cards. These cost $59.95 for a pack of 20. These would make wonderful baby announcements! Celebrating a new life, without damaging the earth.

We tried these out at Christmas, and thought they were so cool. Have you ever tried anything like this? What did you think? Please let me know.

It can be hard to justify sending out greeting cards during the holiday season. You want to let people know you are thinking about them, but they can generate a lot of waste.

Since we’ve been married, we’ve sent out picture postcards of our growing family for the holidays. That way people can put them in photo albums if they’d like. It’s a little more personal and hopefully not all of them are thrown away. We also don’t have the waste of envelopes and postage is a little cheaper. This system isn’t perfect, though. Last year, our son’s face ended up with ink marks on it as it went through the post office’s system.

But now there’s a better solution – ReProduct’s Zero Waste Greeting cards.

These cards are made from materials that aren’t harmful to the environment. And once your recipient is done with the card, she can put them in a postage paid envelope and send them to Shaw to be made into Eco-Worx carpet tiles.The cards are beautiful, featuring polar bears, wolves, evergreen trees draped in snow. But the two-way envelope is the coolest part of this card.

 It’s similar to a Netflix envelope. You fold the flap over to mail them out. The recipient then pulls a tab to open the envelope, which is pre-printed with an address and postage. The card is simply put back in the envelope and sent to Shaw.

If you’re like us, and want to send out cute picture cards, custom cards are also an option.

A box of 18 greeting cards costs $29.95. The picture cards are $50.00 for a box of 20. You can order larger quantities of these, and the price per card is lower if you buy more.

ReProduct’s website reports that we all “…must use the resources we have been given in an intelligent manner.” There are patents pending on the cards, and once I figured out the envelope, I wondered why someone hadn’t thought of this sooner.

It’s a great, and easy way to cut down on waste.

Not only do they do greeting cards, the company also does annual reports. I remember thinking about the huge amounts of paper my old company wasted on these. This could be a very easy way for businesses to start cutting back on their waste.