Allstate Printing & Graphics

Like millions of Americans, Jessica Hamilton of Pasadena will buy her friends and family a handful of gift cards this holiday season, drawn by their convenience.

Yet Hamilton, who carries reusable bags when she goes shopping, is bothered by the thought of all of that plastic ending up in landfills along with worn-out hotel key cards, credit cards and the like.

In 2013, the global card industry produced 33 billion cards, according to the International Card Manufacturers Assn. Most of those cards contained polyvinyl chloride, a plastic that contains pollutants that are harmful to the environment and is slow to decompose.

"If they had something more eco-friendly, that would make me shop at one place over another," Hamilton said. Increasingly, card manufacturers and retailers are listening, offering more alternatives to plastic cards.

High-end grocery store Whole Foods Market Inc. did away with plastic cards in 2012 and replaced them with paper gift cards. "Generally, at Whole Foods, we like to think green ... but we were producing tons and tons of waste from PVC cards and that wasn't in line with what we want to do," said Marushka Bland, gift cards project manager for the Austin, Texas, company.

 "If one of our customers is environmentally conscious and doesn't want to give a plastic card, then we love to give our customer the opportunity to make a purchase they can feel good about," Bland said.
Some businesses are also expanding to digital options such as e-cards and mobile phone applications that offer the same function as a gift card, but Bland is confident that demand for his product will be around for a long time.
"There is a trend to go electronic," Bland said. "But there is a traditional market where people want to have the physical card to give as a gift."