“Green” Yearbooks? We’re Getting There!

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In my daughter’s backpack this morning, I discovered a note about school pictures, soon to be delivered. That brings to mind the topic of yearbooks. Here’s a product that has everything wrong with it from an environmental standpoint — coated paper (making the paper difficult to recycle), tons of ink, lots of unnecessary pages, and never recycled.

As schools and other educational institutions plan for next year’s yearbook process, is there a way to make it more environmentally friendly?

Yes! TreeRing is a Silicon Valley, CA-based technology company that uses the efficiency of digital printing (one of my favorite subjects) to create personalized yearbooks that commemorate each child’s unique school experience. Parents create the yearbooks online (like online scrapbooking!), so the only yearbooks printed are the yearbooks wanted. No unwanted yearbooks cluttering up landfills.

Not only does this reduce the cost to schools, but as I look at it, by personalizing the content to only that of interest to each student, this not also reduces the size of each yearbook — further reducing the environmental impact.

In addition, the company has partnered with Trees for the Future (which has already planted over 50 million trees around the world) to plant a tree for every yearbook printed.

Not a bad way to green your yearbook program for next year!

Like this post? See all my “Greening Print Marketing” posts.

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