Holiday Catalog Waste: Week II

Dateline: December 2, 2002
Catalogs Received: 53 since November 17, 2002
Worst Offender: Williams & Sonoma (5 catalogs)

As reported in my earlier post, I am counting down the days and catalogs till Christmas. In this age of mass consumerism, commercialism of Holidays and heavy attention to email spam, I think it's important not forget the waste (of natural resources as well as hard earned and usually fought for marketing dollars) that goes into catalog production, printing and mailing.

So rather than rant, rave and post the insane offers I receive via email but are filtered by my junk mail filter, I simply post visual data and pictures illustrating the junk mail that is causing my mailman's likely repeated trips to chiropractic and massage therapy. Here is a

list of the catalogs
I've received. And here is week a running photo essay of my catalog collection by week. It's interesting to note that I've received catalogs from “pure-play” e-commerce sites Buy.com and RedEnvelope as well as the most recent Marshall Fields catalog indicates a relationship with Amazon.com. Remember click and order versus bricks and mortar? Fact is, all of these catalogs are trying to drive traffic to their e-commerce investment online. Me? I think this year my gifts will be trees planted or starving children adopted in my friends' or relatives' name. And probably a bottle of wine or two or three. But nothing from those catalogs. Shame.