At Colleen Michele, we offer eco-friendly invitations for baby showers, birthdays & more made with sustainable paper and printing.
Eco-friendly Invitations: Made with 100% post-consumer content recycled paper
Our invitations are printed on Mohawk FSC-certified, 100% post-consumer recycled paper. Mohawk has been a leader in environmentally conscious printing, sourcing recycled and sustainable content for its papers, reducing emissions from its mills and using renewable windpower. Recycled paper may have small, subtle imperfections due to the recycled fibers. However, the overall appearance is of bright white cardstock.
Why is post-consumer content so important? The higher percentage of post-consumer content, the more environmentally friendly recycled paper is. Reusing the post-consumer paper fibers prevents them from ending up in landfills, and from needing to use new content from trees.
Sustainable Envelopes: 100% Cotton or 100% Post-consumer kraft
Our envelope options include white 100% cotton envelopes, and 100% post-consumer recycled, brown grocer’s kraft envelopes. The kraft envelopes are a great choice due to their recycled content and rustic look. The white cotton envelopes are a classic bright white, and have a lovely soft texture.
Why are the cotton envelopes eco-friendly? Cotton is a surprisingly eco-friendly material for paper products. This is because cotton is never grown specifically to make paper – rather, paper is produced using linters, a byproduct of the cotton textile industry that would otherwise be wasted.
Envelope liners: Our envelope liners are FSC certified. FSC certification ensures that the paper comes from responsibly managed forests.
Chlorine use
Our papers are elemental chlorine and process chlorine free. Virgin fiber (such as the cotton envelopes) are produced using alternative chlorine compounds, which substantially reduces the toxic byproducts produced by using elemental chlorine.
Recycled fibers are process chlorine free, meaning they are processed without the use of any additional chlorine or chlorine compounds.
Sustainable Printing: HP Indigo digital printing press
Our printer uses HP Indigo presses, which produce high quality digital prints, while being efficient with both energy and ink. HP ElectroInk (the kind of ink used on Indigo presses) does not contain any toxic air contaminants in the California Toxic Air Contaminants or Federal Hazardous Air Pollutants list, and it meets the both US and EU requirements for printing on the non-contact side of food packaging materials.
The ink used in HP Indigo presses is deinkable and certified compostable, meaning our recycled paper and cotton invitations and envelopes are both recyclable and compostable.
Digital Downloads
Our invitation designs are available as digital downloads in our Etsy shop, where we have over 8,000 sales! Opting to go digital will allow you to print at home or locally and reduce the environmental cost of shipping. Or, you can simply send the invitations through email/text or social media, and avoid using paper and ink altogether.
