The last time I bought #10 envelopes was about a half-decade ago. For reasons I don’t recall, I hauled home a huge box of 500 envelopes. Shortly after, I started my green blog, drastically reduced all snail mail, and dragged around my big box of envelopes to a few different apartments until I finally used them all about a month ago.

So a couple weeks ago I walked a block to my nearest Staples — my go-to store for 100% post-consumer recycled paper — to find the office chain didn’t offer any business-sized envelopes with recycled content!

Errand aborted, I walked back home to do some research. Need envelopes and won’t settle for forest-destroying all-virgin paper? Consider these options:

Get it today:

>> Ampad Envirotech recycled #10 envelopes at The Green Life. Live in or near Santa Monica? Walk over to The Green Life on Main St. and you can pick up 100% post-consumer recycled envelopes right away. A box of 500 envelopes costs $16.25 (3.2 cents an envelope) — and comes with the happy knowledge that no trees were felled for your snail mail habits.

And you’ll be glad to know that The Green Life’s price is quite a bit cheaper than the Amazon price for the same product! In fact, The Green Life’s price is the lowest I’ve found for 100% post-consumer recycled envelopes — and is good for online shopping too.

>> Office Depot’s recycled #10 envelopes. Staples is behind its competition, because Office Depot offers its own brand of eco-friendlier envelopes with 30% post-consumer recycled content. That said, 30% isn’t as high recycled content as I’d like, and a box of 250 envelopes costs $9.59 (3.8 cents an envelope) — more than twice as much as the non-recycled content type! Still, if you have an envelope emergency of sorts and need to buy them in store right away, Office Depot at least offers a slightly greener option.

FSC-certified:

>> Action Envelope #10 Square Flaps. If you won’t settle for anything less than the greenest — and price isn’t too much of a concern, try Action Envelope’s 100% post-consumer recycled, FSC-certified #10 envelopes. A box of 250 envelopes costs $34.95 (13.9 cents an envelope), though you can buy as few as 50 or as many as 50,000. The more you buy, the lower your per-envelope cost. (via karpul)

Tree-free:

>> Banana and coffee paper envelopes at Ecopaper. These envelopes are made with otherwise unusable byproducts of farming. A box of 100 envelopes costs $12.95 (13 cents an envelope).

>> Hemp Heritage envelopes from Green Field Paper Company. These hemp papers don’t look as crunchy as they sound, but apparently hemp doesn’t come cheap. A box of 50 envelopes costs $14.95, though you can get a bargain on 500 envelopes for $69.95 (13.9 cents an envelope).

Brown:

>> Natural Brown Ampad Envirotech Recycled #10 Envelopes. These 100% recycled envelopes with 40% post-consumer content’s available at many different web stores — including Amazon where a box of 500 costs $18.57 (3.7 cents an envelope).

Best bargains, with caveats:

>> Bulk and bargain envelopes at Green Earth Office Supply. This green online office supply store has the best selection of eco-friendly envelopes at all prices — and a website that looks like it was built in the 90s. Design and usability issues aside, this company has some serious bargains — with caveats. Want 100% post-consumer recycled envelopes for less than 3 cents a piece? You can get that price — if you buy 2500 envelopes. Kind of broke but want to try tree-free paper? A box of 100 coffee paper envelopes can be yours for a mere $2 — but the catch is that the minimum order at this store’s $40.
__

After all that research, I ended up with envelope paralysis. Living in a tiny apartment, I really didn’t want to get another box of 500 envelopes. I wanted just 50 or so — but the few 50-envelope boxes I found cost twice as much as a 500-envelope, ungreen box, making me feel I was somehow getting ripped off….

What to do, what to do? I started to wonder — Do I even need to buy envelopes? I certainly don’t use a whole lot of them….

So I’ve put the decision on hold while trying out a new eco-experiment: Seeing how long I can get by using free envelopes that come unsolicited in the mail. In just a couple weeks, I’ve already collected seven decent envelopes — a couple from businesses that insist on sending me paper bills although I pay them online, a nice black envelope from a friend’s over-complicated wedding invite, three card-sized envelopes from FINCA — a nonprofit that sent a trio of card-and-envelope sets in a letter asking for money (the cards themselves were fugly and won’t be used).

Chances are, I’ll probably end up buying envelopes in the next couple months. The envelopes I’m collecting simply aren’t appropriate for the occasions when I need to send serious-looking business mail. At that time, I’ll head over to The Green Life, supporting a local eco-store while getting 100% post-consumer recycled envelopes.

Which envelopes would you choose?

[crossposted on BlogHer]

Top photo by slackorama; bottom photo by Siel

5 Comments