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Sustainable gift cards made from paper replace PVC cards

Mar. 07, 2024

The gift card industry is enormous. In 2021 alone, an estimated $171 billion in gift cards were sold in the United States and that number is expected to grow by nearly 10% annually to reach $239 billion by 2025. Furthermore, 51% of U.S. adults forget to redeem their gift cards – effectively allowing retailers to pocket the revenue without providing any good or services in return. For these reasons, it's clear that card-based marketing programs are a key component of the modern retail business model.

However, there is a downside to this phenomenon in retailing. Most commonly made out of polyvinyl chloride, also known as PVC plastic, gift cards are a significant source of pollution and are detrimental to the environment.

The Environmental Impact of PVC Gift Cards

The PVC plastic used to manufacture most specialty gift cards is a particularly problematic form of plastic. Few recycling programs accept PVC. Even for those that do, the small size of a card increases the risk of contaminating the recycling stream. The long-term environmental impact of all that unrecycled PVC waste is alarming.

PVC gift cards end up in landfills

Assuming approximately 10 billion gift cards sold in the U.S. each year, up to 50,000 tons of PVC has the potential to end up in landfills annually. Considering that it takes PVC 500 years to break down, the cumulative effect of that waste year over year is staggering.

PVC creates CO2

The manufacturing of PVC gift cards also creates carbon dioxide, one of the greenhouse gases linked to global warming. Assuming the same annual volume of 10 billion cards per year, that equates to more than 40,000 tons of CO2 generated annually.

PVC contains harmful chemicals

PVC itself is a toxic and potentially carcinogenic material. Chlorine, dioxin, cadmium, lead and phthalates are among the materials utilized in the creation of PVC. The problem is multiplied whenever PVC is incinerated – releasing those harmful compounds into the air.

Paper Gift Cards Offer a Sustainable Alternative

Thankfully, there is a practical and environmentally friendly alternative to PVC cards. Paper mills have developed paper card substrates that are specially engineered to provide the durability required. These paper-based cards eliminate the most serious environmental concerns associated with PVC gift cards.

Paper-based gift cards are easily recycled in consumer recycling programs.
The raw materials used for the paper substrates are often sourced from responsibly managed forests and carry an FSC® (Travel Tags FSC®-C007066) certification.
Water-soluble glues and inks can be used to further reduce the environmental impact of the card manufacturing process.

A Leader in Sustainable Gift Card Manufacturing

Taylor is committed to sustainability and seeks to conduct business in an environmentally responsible manner by safeguarding precious natural resources. As one of the world’s largest producers of gift and loyalty cards, Taylor is leading the way in the industry’s adoption of paper-based gift cards. We have produced more than 100 million paper gift cards to date and helped retail giant Best Buy transition to recyclable paper gift cards in 2018.

Our gift card customers can choose from multiple paper substrates with varying percentages of post-consumer waste. We also offer more than a dozen card embellishments that do not affect the recyclability of the finished product. Taylor is a true single-source provider and delivers an end-to-end solution including:

Card fulfillment for B2C, B2B and business-to-store applications
Card packaging options including card on carrier, wraps, secure packages, and blister and blisterless multipacks
Data management with best-in-class data security technology

Looking for a more sustainable, earth-friendly way to offer your customers gift cards? Contact us to learn more about Taylor’s paper-based card products.

For immediate release: November 25, 2022

Contact: Judith Enck, Beyond Plastics – JudithEnck@Bennington.edu, (518) 605-1770

As we enter the thick of the holiday giving season, Beyond Plastics has released a new fact sheet detailing the many reasons why brands and retailers should stop producing and selling gift cards made from polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic, including that:

PVC is poisonous to produce. Vinyl chloride, the building block of PVC, is defined by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) as a human carcinogen.
PVC waste is hazardous to dispose of.
PVC gift cards are not accepted by curbside and household recycling programs.
Significant amounts of PVC waste are created from manufacturing gift cards.
U.S. PVC waste exports are violating the laws of countries that ban PVC imports and threatening the health of communities in the receiving countries, including Turkey, India, Mexico and Indonesia.

“There is no excuse for businesses to continue selling PVC gift cards when safer, more sustainable alternatives are readily available,” said Judith Enck, president of Beyond Plastics and former U.S. EPA Regional Administrator. “We also urge consumers not to buy them,” said Enck.

Gift cards are a convenient and popular giving choice. Roughly $173 billion dollars’ worth of gift cards (a total of around 3.4 billion cards) were sold in the United States in 2021.[i] As the 2022 holiday season begins, experts say that “gift cards are expected to be popular presents as 60% of consumers say they will buy the cards to fill a void in product availability created by disruptions to product supply chains.”[ii]

Unfortunately, many big brand companies are still using polyvinyl chloride (PVC) plastic to make their gift cards. Informal surveys indicate that as many as 70% of the gift cards sold in stores are made from PVC plastic.

Fortunately, safe, non-toxic, more sustainable alternatives to PVC gift cards are readily available now.

Businesses can choose to create and sell either:

1. Electronic Gift Cards. These digital gift cards are purchased and used online and through mobile apps, offering the same convenience as plastic or paper with none of the waste.

2. Paper Gift Cards. Paper gift cards are non-toxic and can be made from renewable resources. Amazon, Apple, and Starbucks are among the major brands who have opted to make their gift cards from paper.

Beyond Plastics is calling on all companies to commit to stop selling all PVC gift cards and switch to paper or electronic gift cards immediately. In particular, we are urging Albertsons, Kroger, Target, and Walmart - the four largest retailers of gift cards - to make the switch away from PVC gift cards to either paper or digital cards immediately.

Visit https://www.beyondplastics.org/pvcgiftcards to download the short fact sheet.

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[i]Research and Markets, United States Gift Card and Incentive Card Market Intelligence and Future Growth Dynamics (Databook) - Q1 2022 Update, January 2022. Card number estimate based on $50 average value.

[ii] Digital Transactions, “Gift Cards Will Be High on Gift Lists This Holiday Season, A Fiserv Study Says,” August 23, 2022

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