Eco-friendly New Year postcards go on sale in Japan

I will send exactly the same number as last year and years before...zero.!

Mr Kipling is an eco warrior...

Jjapanese greenwashing ...

Soon after, fukubukuro and tons of wrapping paper and plastic bags ...

Its really depressing and kind of infuriating how underwhelming and pathetic the headline environmental “initiatives” in this country are.

This:

New Year's greeting postcards for 2022 have gone on sale across Japan this week, using internationally certified paper produced from forests that have not been illegally logged to show consideration for environmental protection.

is not something they should be congratulating themselves on, its the bare minimum (literally all they are doing is promising to stop using illegal wood) that they should have been doing all along anyway.

Come to think of it, if they were really trying to be environmentally friendly they’d be using recycled paper rather than trees to make these things.

Eco-friendly New Year postcards 

Yup, can't wait till they invent digital photography and email/texting...................

Help Save a tree.

Help save the planet.

Help reduce CO2

Help save some money.

I think we’re stopping the cards now.

Maybe the post office could think of something that could help their business and reduce the cards.

how about a digital one?

How about not sending any physical cards?

How about not sending any physical cards?

Things made from sustainably managed forests are perfectly ecologically sustainable, the forests are ‘farmed’ so that trees are replanted and extraction doesn’t exceed regrowth.

Using social media looks more eco friendly only because the impacts are out of sight of the individual user.

Exactly. Few seem to understand this fact.

Zichi and Cleo make some valid points as well.

I also like sending cards, and my family back home likes the Chinese characters of the cars. It is a tradition and the only cards/letters I send every year.

To come back to the article, illegal or not, , nothing is eco, it is made from a tree. Using recycled paper would look more eco-friendly.

Greenwashing and PR from the post office

I am super eco friendly.

Since I hate all people I send no cards or emails.

If I happen to tolerate someone at work I speak a gratuitous greeting. And that is it.

"A standard email: 4 g CO2e (carbon dioxide equivalent)"

"This means that a days’ worth of emails received is equal to  1,652 g CO2e…

That's 400+ emails a day for the average person on an average day. Perhaps this factors in spam emails, which certainly emits CO2 as well.

Made from trees, as opposed to non eco friendly cards which are made from...... trees. When will this nonsense end.

Things made from sustainably managed forests are perfectly ecologically sustainable, the forests are ‘farmed’ so that trees are replanted and extraction doesn’t exceed regrowth.

Using social media looks more eco friendly only because the impacts are out of sight of the individual user.

That office girl alone is an ecological nightmare, how many plastic covered cards is she wearing?, and if I’m not wrong the display she is showing is also coated in plastic.

How about not sending any physical cards?

If JP would transition to electric bikes and vehicles to distribute those cards, the carbon footprint could be even less. But then someone would always say what about the production of those vehicles? Exactly, it all goes back to energy, clean energy.

And electricity is produced by magic.......

If JP would transition to electric bikes and vehicles to distribute those cards, the carbon footprint could be even less. 

Incidentally, has Japan just started blocking some postal services to the US and Australia? Why?

When I went to post some stuff in the summer I was given a flyer pointing out that parcels to the US would be returned/not accepted in the US if they had a hand-written label; it had to be printed. Something to do with security, not covid.

Last month I went in again to post something to the UK, and was told that this printed-label-only policy now applied across the board, and I would have to go home, register on the JP website, print off my label, and take it to the PO with a special plastic pouch I would have to order online.

And because of covid, surface mail can now take for ever to arrive with no guarantee of delivery, so you really, really should use the more expensive and reliable airmail (the lady in the PO told me).

A lot of bother and toing and froing just to send some pretty calendars home. It's almost like they don't want people to use the international post service.

Invalid CSRF

I know digital is the eco way to go, but like zichi we feel cards are an integral part of the season. (For me, at least; Mr. Cleo's list seems to get shorter year on year).

Maybe the PO could produce some kind of digital card that still had the lottery numbers, that could be sent for a small fee?

That would remove the stigma of being a cheapskate that is attached to just sending an email or text message, while still keeping the potential freebie treat for the recipient.

Invalid CSRF

I know digital is the eco way to go, but like zichi we feel cards are an integral part of the season. (For me, at least; Mr. Cleo's list seems to get shorter year on year).

Maybe the PO could produce some kind of digital card that still had the lottery numbers, that could be sent for a small fee?

That would remove the stigma of being a cheapskate that is attached to just sending an email or text message, while still keeping the potential freebie treat for the recipient.

Invalid CSRF

God, singlehandedly the world was saved ;-)

To be fair, if eco-friendly is measured by energy consumed to have it sustainable, then sending post card likely consumes more than digital as the hosted servers would provide way more emails than paper for post cards but I definitely could be wrong.

sending post card likely consumes more than digital as the hosted servers would provide way more emails than paper for post cards but I definitely could be wrong.

I have no answer, but it's an interesting problem. I don't think there is an eco issue with trees being the source material of the cards. The bigger questions might be how much energy is used in the manufacturing process and delivering the bloody things. And would a phone call be better?

Sending postcards to friends during the pandemic cheered a lot of people up. We are human, we will impact upon the environment all our lives. Net zero is a fantasy. To get close to it, we would all have to stop having children, as each future human will have an impact. A puritanical response - banning all the things that make life tolerable, our culture, festivals, everything, would see those implementing it treated as dictators.

Incidentally, has Japan just started blocking some postal services to the US and Australia? Why? Even third world countries maintained postal links during the pandemic.

I know digital is the eco way to go, but like zichi we feel cards are an integral part of the season. (For me, at least; Mr. Cleo's list seems to get shorter year on year).

Maybe the PO could produce some kind of digital card that still had the lottery numbers, that could be sent for a small fee?

That would remove the stigma of being a cheapskate that is attached to just sending an email or text message, while still keeping the potential freebie treat for the recipient.

Invalid CSRF

I know digital is the eco way to go, but like zichi we feel cards are an integral part of the season. (For me, at least; Mr. Cleo's list seems to get shorter year on year).

Maybe the PO could produce some kind of digital card that still had the lottery numbers, that could be sent for a small fee?

That would remove the stigma of being a cheapskate that is attached to just sending an email or text message, while still keeping the potential freebie treat for the recipient.

Invalid CSRF

Don't send hundreds of cards out every year as a chore, and it won't be a problem

I know digital is the eco way to go, but like zichi we feel cards are an integral part of the season. (For me, at least; Mr. Cleo's list seems to get shorter year on year).

Maybe the PO could produce some kind of digital card that still had the lottery numbers, that could be sent for a small fee?

That would remove the stigma of being a cheapskate that is attached to just sending an email or text message, while still keeping the potential freebie treat for the recipient.

Invalid CSRF

Sure kill a lot of trees to make these cards, but they have a cool lottery number on them.

Prolly the only pledge they can fulfill to fight global warming is this.

Eco-friendly / Organic / Super Food / Premium / Handmade etc these make me headache this generation.