I’ve been planning to get business cards for a long time now, if for no other reason than to share with the Greenpeace folks I quite frequently see on the streets here in Wroclaw (and maybe also to place in all the great vegetarian & vegan restaurants and health food stores in the city).

The folks at UPrinting recently reached out to me about their “eco-friendly business cards,” so maybe I’ll finally go ahead and do so.

The company offers business cards that use vegetable- and soy-based inks, and it offers cards with post-consumer recycled content.

If you’re interested in exploring such cards, take a look at these cheap business cards by Uprinting. And let us know if you know of some other good options! I’ll be looking around and will keep you updated.
 

Why Soy Ink Is Green

I see soy ink all over the place these days, and it’s of course advertised as green, but I had never really looked into why it’s green until just now. I found some interesting points via a Green Wiki on the subject:

• it replaces petroleum-based ink;
• it “has low levels of VOCs, (volatile organic compounds) which helps to reduce air pollution by minimizing toxic emissions;”
• it improves the life span of printers (interesting!);
• it makes recycling paper easier;
• it “has been found to spread approximately 15% further, reducing ink use and printer cleanup costs;”
• and “the pigment cartier in 100-percent soy ink degrades almost twice as completely as ink made from soy oil and petroleum resins, and more than four times as completely as standard petroleum inks.”

Interesting stuff.

Of course, we all know why post-consumer recycled paper is better — it keeps us from having to cut down trees!

So, next time you get some business cards, make sure they use soy ink and post-consumer recycled paper.

Zachary Shahan (1961 Posts)

I'm the director of CleanTechnica, the most popular clean energy website in the world, and Planetsave, a leading green and science news site. I've been covering green news of various sorts since 2008, and I've been especially focused on solar energy, electric vehicles, bicycling, and wind energy for the past few years. You can also find my work on Scientific American, Reuters, Think Progress, GE's ecomagination site, several sites in the Important Media network, & many other places. To connect on some of your favorite social networks, go to zacharyshahan.com or click on some of the links below.