The Catalog That Broke the Blogger's Back

Okay, that does it! The fourth LL Bean catalog in as many days showed up in my mailbox this afternoon. I've been thinking about this project ever since I first heard Bill Moyers talk about it on his PBS show Bill Moyers Journal a couple of weeks ago. But, you know how it is, end of the semester, Thanksgiving, raking the leaves, all that end-of-season stuff can drive good intentions right down the drain. So, now we're moving rapidly into the big commercial holiday season, and the catalog overload is beginning to drive me nuts. Every day brings a new armload of catalogs from places I routinely order stuff, places I might someday order something, places I've never heard of and wouldn't order from in my wildest dreams. Because I can dump them into the curbside recycling load once a week, I've just been sighing annoyedly and doing just that.

But, after that final straw LL Bean catalog today, I finally checked out this site to find out what it's all about and how it works. Catalog Choice is a project of The Ecology Center in that radical hippy pinko town (at least I hope it still is) of Berkeley, CA. After I read the following statistics, I clearly saw that just dumping my cats in to be recycled was in no way the mindful thing to do for the environment:Did you know?
Each year, 19 billion catalogs are mailed to American consumers.

What’s the impact?
Number of trees used – 53 million trees
Pounds of paper used – 3.6 million tons of paper
Energy used to produce this volume of paper – 38 trillion BTUs, enough to power 1.2 million homes per year
Contribution to global warming – 5.2 million tons of carbon dioxide emissions, equal to the annual emissions of two million cars
Waste water discharges from this volume of paper – 53 billion gallons of water, enough to fill 81,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools
Environmental impact estimates were made using the Environmental Defense paper calculator.

By the time those catalogs reach my mailbox a large part of their environmental damage has already been done. The energy that will be used to recycle them just adds to the toll. Enter this amazing project. Its purpose is to reduce the number of repeat and unsolicited catalog mailings, and to promote the adoption of sustainable industry best practices. They aim to accomplish this by freely providing the Catalog Choice services to both consumers and businesses. Consumers can indicate which catalogs they no longer wish to receive, and businesses can receive a list of consumers no longer wanting to receive their catalogs. The process is extremely simple, can all be done online, and once you are a registered user you can return to opt out of those NEW unwanted catalogs that inevitably will show up.

This is such a beautifully simpl idea, so easy to do, and its benefits so far-reaching. I'm returning right now to click that "Get Started" button. By the time the next big commercial holiday (Father's Day, second in retail profits only to Christmas), rolls around, my life should be virtually catalog-free. Well, okay, except for Gardeners' Supply, that one I think I'll keep.

Technorati Tags: Bill Moyers, catalog choice, catalogs, energy, environment, paper

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