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Duck Croutons
Mar. 2nd, 2009 07:33 pmWhat set off my rant about toilet paper the other day was an article that ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
loganberrybunny linked to, in which it was reported that Americans use three times as much paper as Europeans. Rather bizarrely (to me, at least), the author then went on to argue that the best way to discourage the wasteful use of paper was to campaign to get people to use recycled toilet paper.
At the store the other day, I bought a six-pack* of Charmin Ultra Soft, a paper which (I'm pleased to observe) Greenpeace rates as 'do not buy'**. They don't give the weight on the package, but it's about two pounds of paper. Assuming I don't get a cold (I use toilet paper instead of Kleenex, as I find the roll very convenient), that'd last me about two to three months. I'm using maybe a pound of fancy toilet paper a month.
Now, today I found yet another phone book left outside my door, which promptly went into the trash. It was protected by a fairly nice, reusable shopping bag, made of thick plastic, but I've got more of those than I need already. Into the trash with that as well. They join a small stack of advertising from all of the local stores, printed in full colour on glossy, high-quality paper. Unlike the phone books (which come only five or six times a year) these come every day, twenty or thirty pages worth. Straight into the trash with those too, without even a glance. The apartment complex has thoughtfully put a huge container right by the mailboxes, so you can discard the stuff immediately, without carrying it back home with you. It fills up every few days, with (I'd estimate) probably close to a thousand pounds of paper, every bit of it removed from the mailbox then pitched right into the trash.
I'm guessing that fewer than one in ten of these actually get read, if that many. If anyone *did* want one, every store has a big stack of them sitting just inside the entryway, complete with all of the coupons. I've never seen a store that has run out, which leads to the conclusion that huge stacks of these are being tossed into the dumpster every few days there too.
I've personally ditched about four pounds of paper today, without even bothering to look at the advertising printed thereon. On a normal day, it'd be more like two pounds - the phone book made this a red-letter day. Still, that's a lot, and that doesn't even include my share of the printed flyers waiting in stacks inside the grocery store. It's paper that I don't want, and didn't ask to be given. I'd much rather it not have been sent to me. There's no mechanism for exercising choice in this, though. I exist (or at least my postal address exists), so I'm fated to be bombarded with paper, which I must then throw away.
I'm left to conclude that did Greenpeace actually care about preventing waste, they'd focus on things like this, instead of consumer goods.
* The fact that you can't just buy a one or two roll package anymore is another source of irritation to me, but that's for another time.
** There's a certain irony in the fact that they invite you to print their toilet paper buying guide, instead of saving paper by just looking at it online.
loganberrybunny linked to, in which it was reported that Americans use three times as much paper as Europeans. Rather bizarrely (to me, at least), the author then went on to argue that the best way to discourage the wasteful use of paper was to campaign to get people to use recycled toilet paper.At the store the other day, I bought a six-pack* of Charmin Ultra Soft, a paper which (I'm pleased to observe) Greenpeace rates as 'do not buy'**. They don't give the weight on the package, but it's about two pounds of paper. Assuming I don't get a cold (I use toilet paper instead of Kleenex, as I find the roll very convenient), that'd last me about two to three months. I'm using maybe a pound of fancy toilet paper a month.
Now, today I found yet another phone book left outside my door, which promptly went into the trash. It was protected by a fairly nice, reusable shopping bag, made of thick plastic, but I've got more of those than I need already. Into the trash with that as well. They join a small stack of advertising from all of the local stores, printed in full colour on glossy, high-quality paper. Unlike the phone books (which come only five or six times a year) these come every day, twenty or thirty pages worth. Straight into the trash with those too, without even a glance. The apartment complex has thoughtfully put a huge container right by the mailboxes, so you can discard the stuff immediately, without carrying it back home with you. It fills up every few days, with (I'd estimate) probably close to a thousand pounds of paper, every bit of it removed from the mailbox then pitched right into the trash.
I'm guessing that fewer than one in ten of these actually get read, if that many. If anyone *did* want one, every store has a big stack of them sitting just inside the entryway, complete with all of the coupons. I've never seen a store that has run out, which leads to the conclusion that huge stacks of these are being tossed into the dumpster every few days there too.
I've personally ditched about four pounds of paper today, without even bothering to look at the advertising printed thereon. On a normal day, it'd be more like two pounds - the phone book made this a red-letter day. Still, that's a lot, and that doesn't even include my share of the printed flyers waiting in stacks inside the grocery store. It's paper that I don't want, and didn't ask to be given. I'd much rather it not have been sent to me. There's no mechanism for exercising choice in this, though. I exist (or at least my postal address exists), so I'm fated to be bombarded with paper, which I must then throw away.
I'm left to conclude that did Greenpeace actually care about preventing waste, they'd focus on things like this, instead of consumer goods.
* The fact that you can't just buy a one or two roll package anymore is another source of irritation to me, but that's for another time.
** There's a certain irony in the fact that they invite you to print their toilet paper buying guide, instead of saving paper by just looking at it online.
