More Videos
MOST SHARED
- Today's Market Action
- Microsoft's Bill Gates Praises Apple's Steve Jobs For 'Saving the Company'
- Week Ahead: Investors Go for Quality, Assess Recovery
- Israel: Leader of Business Innovation
- Herbalife Vs. Hedge Funds
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- Seeking Innovation in Health Care
- Inside Wal-Mart's Acai Berry Juice Maker
- China's Role as Lender Alters Dynamics for United States
- CNBC TRANSCRIPT: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping America Great
- Dollar is Not Plunging—So 'Calm Down': Market Strategist
- Strategists Say Markets Have More Upside — But How Much?
- Hirschhorn: Risk-Averse Traders
- Roginsky: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Financial Reform
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
- TV Series Inks Unique Deal For Fight
- First Time Buyers Rescue Housing: Realtors
- Dollar General Trades Higher After Its IPO
- Fed Reform? Not So Fast.
- White House Plans to Freeze Spending to Cut Deficit
- Week Ahead: Investors Go for Quality, Assess Recovery
- Hedge Fund Billionaire Paulson Reports New Citi Stake
- Cramer: 5 Earnings Reports to Watch Next Week
- Court Rejects 'Clawbacks' for Alleged Stanford Victims
- Cities With the Most Home Price Reductions
- Tax Credit Sparking First-Time Home Sales: Realtors
- Investors Cut Back US Stocks for Bigger Growth Abroad
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
RSS FEED
Funny Business
Text Size 
 |
The only time of year I get anything in the mail I want is now, when I receive Christmas cards. But even those are starting to taper off. Hmmm...
But I was talking about catalogs.
A group called Forest Ethics is grading companies based on how tree-friendly their catalogs are. The report carries the headline "Rudolph pleads for Donner and Blitzen's Future, Catalog Industry Continues to Threaten Caribou Habitat and Other Endangered Forests." Why does Rudolph just care about Donner and Blitzen? Maybe they were in favor of letting him play reindeer games.
Forest Ethics has put out a "Naughty and Nice" list which praises companies like Patagonia, Dell, and Victoria's Secret for using recycled paper and reducing overall paper usage in their catalogs (it takes credit for pressuring Victoria's Secret to change its ways with last year's "Victoria's Dirty Secret" campaign). But in the "Naughty" pile is Neiman Marcus, Talbots, Eddie Bauer, Office Max, Lands' End, The Sharper Image, School Specialty, Spiegel, and especially Sears. Apparently "where America shops" is also where trees die.
Forest Ethics says Sears sends out 425 million catalogs a year--that's more than a million a day--using very little recycled paper, and much of the paper comes from threatened forests where reindeer live. Sears responded by telling the Montreal Gazette its paper is "carefully selected to be able to address both our business needs and a responsible approach to reforestation."
By the way, Forest Ethics claims retailers send out 20 billion catalogs a year, and that the average American spends eight months of his or her life opening junk mail. I want those eight months back.
AN ECO-FRIENDLY HANG-UP ON HANGERS
I reported in my "Dry Cleaner Economic Index" that there is no longer any domestic hanger production in America! I should have been more specific...no more domestic WIRE hanger production. There is a homegrown hanger company which makes hangers out of recycled paper and sells ad space on them. Eco-Hangers.
Comments? Funny Stories? Email
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes