A woman commented on one of our Facebook posts this week with genuinely good questions.
A woman commented on one of our Facebook posts this week with genuinely good questions. Where is the material actually made? It's not plastic, so what is it? And if it's wood pulp, doesn't that come with its own environmental cost? I want to answer all of that here, with real numbers, instead of burying it in a comment thread.
The paper problem we're actually trying to fix
Americans buy about 6.5 billion greeting cards a year, spending $7 to $8 billion on cards that get read once, maybe displayed on a shelf for a week or two, and then thrown out (Greeting Card Association). Nine out of ten US households buy cards every year. That's not a niche habit, that's nearly everyone.
At the same time, the US goes through about 13 billion pounds of paper towels a year, roughly 40 pounds per person. Making that many paper towels takes an estimated 110 million trees and 130 billion gallons of water annually (Earth911). And here's the part that doesn't get said enough: once a paper towel is used, it's contaminated and can't be recycled at all. Every single one goes to a landfill or an incinerator. Not most. All.
That's the actual problem Soak iT Up exists to chip away at. Not "cards are bad" or "paper towels are bad" on their own, but the fact that we're buying two entirely separate disposable paper products for two entirely separate one-time uses.
What a Clard actually replaces, and the math if people switch
A Clard is one object that does both jobs. You send it as a card. The person who gets it wets it, wrings it out, and it becomes a reusable, washable, compostable cleaning cloth they use for months. One Clard replaces up to 3,000 paper towels over its life.
Here's what that means at scale. If just one person swaps one card for one Clard this year, that's one fewer disposable card in circulation, plus up to 3,000 paper towels that never get pulled off a roll. Now stretch that out: if just 1% of the 6.5 billion cards Americans buy this year were Clards instead, that's 65 million fewer single-use cards, and up to 195 billion paper towel uses avoided. That's 1 in 100 people making one different choice. I'm not claiming that will happen. I'm showing you the math so you can see why I think this is worth doing at all.
What it's actually made of
The material is 70% wood cellulose and 30% cotton. No plastic, no synthetic fibers. It's manufactured in Europe under strict environmental regulations, and it's certified biodegradable. The wood cellulose comes from scrap left over from lumber production, not trees harvested to make cards. I want to be clear that I'm not treating this as a zero-impact product. Turning any raw material into fabric is an industrial process, and it's fair to ask questions about it. What I can tell you honestly is that this isn't virgin pulp cut for the purpose of making a card, and every Clard is built to replace thousands of paper towels and a stack of cards that would otherwise be made, used once, and landfilled.
Are greeting cards even recyclable?
This is the part I actually can't give you a clean industry-wide number on, and I'd rather tell you that than make one up. Nobody publishes a percentage of "how many cards on shelves have glitter, foil, or plastic add-ons." But anyone who's walked down a card aisle already knows the honest answer is a lot of them do.
What's well documented: glitter is a contaminant that recycling facilities reject outright, in any amount (Recycle by City, Chicago). Foil is genuinely debated, some processors can handle it, most curbside single-stream programs can't (Whistlefish). Plastic windows, ribbons, and glued-on embellishments cause the same problem. Paper and paperboard as a category recycles at about 68% nationally (EPA), but a lot of cards never get counted in that number because of what's stuck to them. A Clard doesn't have glitter, foil, or plastic on it, and when its life as a cloth is done, it composts.
"But isn't it weird to clean up with a card someone gave you?"
I hear this one a lot, so let's actually think it through. What's the alternative for a normal paper card? Best case, someone displays it for a week, then it goes in the trash or, if it's lucky and glitter-free, the recycling bin. Or it goes in a drawer, where it sits for years until you move, or your kids clean out your house after you're gone, and someone else throws it away for you.
Compare that to a card you actually use for months. Every time you wipe down a counter or dry a dish with it, you see the design and the note from whoever sent it. I'd argue that's a longer, more present connection to the person who gave it to you than a card sitting face-down in a drawer you forgot about. You're not disrespecting the gift by using it. You're the only person who actually kept it around.
If you've got more questions about how these are made, ask them. That's how I keep building this thing honestly.
If you're ready to try one, shop Clards here, or read more about where the whole idea came from.
It is a beautiful day. Soak iT Up.
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