Last week I opened up my mailbox and was surprised to find a harbinger of the upcoming Christmas season, my first Christmas catalog of 2009.
This first catalog arrived the week of August 17, before school started, before Labor Day, Halloween, or Thanksgiving. By Christmas Eve I will have a big stack of catalogs. What a waste!
Oh, the catalog is filled with 200 pages of stuff, tchatchkes, gift items of every kind for yourself or anyone on your gift list... men's stuff, women's stuff, kid's stuff. Lots and lots of stuff. Silly stuff, cute stuff, useful stuff, tacky stuff.
I don't like getting these catalogs in the mail because I think they are a huge waste of paper and postage and most likely I won't order anything, anyway. If someone requests a catalog, that is fine but don't send them out unrequsted to every address in America.
Here are some interesting statistics on catalog waste I found at www.MelissaData.com :
•Over eight million tons of trees are consumed each year in the production of paper catalogs.
•Nearly half of the planet's original forest cover is gone today. Forests have effectively disappeared in 25 countries, and another 29 have lost more than 90% of their forest cover.
•More than one billion people living in extreme poverty around the world depend on forests for their livelihoods.
•There are other significant environmental impacts from the catalog cycle. The production and disposal of direct mail alone consumes more energy than three million cars.
•The manufacturing, distribution, collection and disposal of catalogs requires energy which will generate "global warming gases" if you believe in the current global warming thing. (Personally, I don't know if global warming is caused by humans, sun flares, or some other natural earthly cycle.)
How about you? Do you order from holiday catalogs?
Disclaimer: Since I am not a political person, this is not a political post. I am neither a liberal nor a conservative. I just don't like waste.
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