Small choices,
big impact
Your badge just saved the planet some extra baggage.
Over 250 million people attend U.S. conferences each year. If everyone wore 4×6 plastic badges and polyester lanyards, laid out in a line, the waste would circle the Earth 3.6 times.
The badge holder you’re wearing was carefully sourced and designed by our SBA Certified Women Owned Small Business, Earthlight, and sustainably made in the USA.
Learn more below.
Learn more about your badge's background:
Recycled Paperboard
FSC, SFI, PEFC Certified. Made in the USA by a Newsweek 'Most Responsible Companies' mill.
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- Manufactured from 98% Post Consumer Waste
- Made in the USA at an Austell, GA mill
- FSC® Certified 100% Recycled
- Programme for the Endorsement of Forest (PEFC) Certified
- Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) Certified
- Producer, Greif, has been rated by EcoVadis since 2014 and was one of Newsweek ‘America’s Most Responsible Companies’
2025/2026 and Named to the Carbon Clean200™ List 2025
Sustainable Production
Cut, glued and printed in the USA with vegetable inks, water-based glue and zero paper waste.
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- Printed with vegetable-based inks or soy-based inks. These produce less VOC’s (Volatile Organic Compounds), and are made with renewable resources like soy, linseed, and corn.
- Uses a U.S.-made, water-based adhesive that does not contain any hazardous substances at or above OSHA and WHMIS reportable levels.
- Production partner, Warneke Paper Box, also a woman-owned business, recycles 100% of its paper waste via a vacuum scrap removal system and Balemaster Compactor to bundle our scrap and ship straight to recycling mills – saving gas, energy and making sure all of paper waste is recycled.
- Solvent recycling system recovers and recycles our waste solvents used in our sheet-fed press operations, creating 80% less landfill waste.
Easily Recyclable
With no coatings, your badge is recyclable with corrugated products, wherever accepted.
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- Made from FSC® Certified Recycled paperboard, this badge is designed to recycle just like your cereal box or tissue box.
- No plastic lamination or synthetic coatings—just paper, so it can go straight into curbside bins (where accepted).
- Plant-based inks and water-based adhesives are compatible with standard corrugated paper recycling processes to break down cleanly during pulping.
- Because it’s flat and uncoated, no disassembly is required.
- Recyclable in most U.S. communities that accept paperboard and cardboard.
- If you’re unsure, look for your local guidance on “paperboard recycling” or “paper-based packaging.”
Circular by design, biodegradable as back-up ...NOT disposable by default.
More on why our sustainability efforts prioritize the elimination of single-use plastics.
Lifecycle assessments may show slightly higher production impacts for paper badges or in washing and reusing our repurposed rental lanyards. But what happens after use tells the full story.
- Only 8.7% of plastics were recycled in the U.S. as of 2018 (NIST, EPA).
- Even when recycled, plastic is usually “downcycled” only once before heading to the landfill for good.
- Plastics can persist for hundreds of years, fragmenting into microplastics that contaminate soil, waterways, and our food systems.
- By contrast, 75% of all paper-based packaging is recovered for recycling (EPA).
- Paperboard is the most widely recycled packaging material in the world, with recovery rates around 80% in both the U.S. and Europe (EPA, Eurostat).
- Paper can be recycled multiple times, returning to consumers in new forms again and again—making it a far more circular, renewable material.
- Paper and wood badges naturally break down in months to a few years, even in landfill conditions.
