Daily Tip: March 19, 2008

While they're awfully pretty, resist the urge to take home the free brochures available at concerts, museums, or even real estate open houses. Most of the info exists online and just a Web search away -- and you’re less likely to lose it on your computer than your pocket.

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Comments

[Margie Campaigne]

I've seen something like this come up before, about going online to find a phone number instead of using a phone book. Again, this tip may save paper if someone really wants the info. On the other hand, there is the cost of having the computer on, getting that much closer to its eventual demise and replacement, and of the energy for all those servers out there. I think we need to be mindful of wasting paper, and make our decisions individually. I don't have the capability to study the actual numbers, but someone does. Let's hear the results!

[Tiffany]

I'm confused as to how this "saves" paper. The brochures/pamphlets/flyers are already printed in these situations. This actually waists the manufacturing process energy(fuel burning, production, paper pulping, etc.)it took to create the item.
I think we all tend to forget that paper is a easily decompostable renewable product in which it costs more energy to recycle it than feasable.Definately be smart and reduce your use (ie dont grab every brocure on the rack)but there is better time spent on reducing things that really harm the planet.

[Freya]

If you take it home then you can scrapbook what you like & recycle the rest. Deciding not to take the brochures does not mean that they will be recycled by the concert hall or that they will stop being produced.

Petition the theatres or concert halls to recycle, print the brochures on recycled paper.

[Colleen Dick]

Think long term people! If people stopped taking shiny brochures, organizations would eventually stop producing them. If you scrapbook, by all means take it, clip the best and recycle the rest. If you are truly interested in some business's services, like say, in the next month, by all means TAKE the brochure.

But if you are a tire kicker who compulsively takes a copy of everything "just in case" and you get piles of stuff at home you never act on please STOP! You're not helping the organization, in fact you are costing them money to produce the material that gains them nothing and either ends up trash or clogging up somebody's drawer or desktop.

I am a business owner. I wish potential customers would browse my website -- there is tons of information there including my brochure as a downloadable. But people typically don't browse deep, and even when they look at everything and actually download the brochure it doesn't generate sales.

I personally HATE physical brochures but I have them because I have to. Colorful glossy EXPENSIVE brochures people can hold in their hand with snappy sales copy, taglines etc. make the business appear "professional" and they generate sales.

I try to engineer things so that tire kickers don't deplete my physical brochures, while making them available to qualified prospects.

If you like you can be proactive. Write to organizations that produce shiny brochures or overpackage their products and ask them to stop. If you do that you have to be prepared to back it up with action that affects the bottom line -- such as consciously and deliberately seeking out organizations that DON'T give out hard brochures and don't overpackage to spend your money at.

I don't look for that catching on for the unwashed in my lifetime. The bottom line is that people, like chickens, respond to fancy packaging and shiny stuff. It's just the way we are wired.

[Joan F]

Lose not loose. You lose weight, then your clothes are loose.

[Gloria Picchetti]

Guilty! I take "stuff" home & regret it. It all goes in the recycling.
At least if I think something has potential I make an Adobe document before it goes in the reycycling. Everything is not online forever.
As for the "computer uses electricity group", the computer uses very little electricity.

[Buffy]

Did the Sierra Club's Green Tip writers really misspell lose? Love the tips, but I am surprised by the error.

[carol]

I was guilty of taking brochures for anything I MIGHT be interested in. I had so many that I never got back to most of them. Now I force myself to make a real decision, and then I take the smallest piece of info I can, usually a business card, so I can call or go on line later.

[Ann McFarlane]

I think being mindful of new ways to advertise successfully without having to rely on pigeonhole concepts such as people gravitate towards something that they can touch and hold and or something shiny.. lets get real.. our world is changing fast. we need to full realize a potential that does not create wastefulness. our imaginations are large enough to encompass plenty of new ideas that will work.. for many generations.

[Michele]

I really can't believe how many people here, on a green website, seem to have confusion that maybe taking a brochure is not as bad as using a bit of energy on the computer to look something up!!??

The comment that since the brochures are "already printed" that you might as well take one, because they probably wont be recycled, is way off base.
If only 1 percent of potential visitors or potential customers to an establishment request and take a printed brochure, the establishment will print far fewer brochures than if, say, 60 percent of visitors/potential customers request and take brochures. Thus, by NOT taking one, you are lessening the demand for them, and the business/establishment will adjust the supply they order and purchase. Simple law of economics, of supply meeting demand. Besides, most businesses will recycle the unused/leftover paper, and if they have a lot to recycle or throw out, they will most likely order much less next time.

As far as wondering if the energy to run a computer for someone to look something up online instead of getting a printed brochure, THINK ABOUT IT. First, there is the logging of the trees for the paper. Transport of the logs to the paper mill. Energy, toxins, land taken up and pollution from the running of the paper mill, and all that went into building the paper mill, then packaging of the paper and transporting the paper to the printing company. Energy, toxins, pollution and land use/construction materials for the ink manufacturing company, then the packaging of and transport of the ink to the printing company. All the same for the printing company, then the packaging of and transport of the printed materials to the retailer/museum/whatever. None of this even includes the wear and tear on the machines used in the logging, paper & ink manufacturing companies and printing company, which the more this equipment is used, the sooner is wears out & needs to be replaced, and all the natural resources & pollution for the manufacturing and transport of the equipment those companies use.

The more our population grows (and it will), the more demand for something even so seemingly miniscule as "brochures" will grow, and eventually even MORE paper mills, ink manufacturers, printing companies will need to be constructed to meet that demand, thus the loss of land and habitat as well. So, you can either become part of the "problem" (consume, consume, consume, acquire more and more "things", "goods" even "brochures"!, or part of the solution--USE less, consume less, fix things when they break if you can, etc.

As insignificant as something like taking a brochure may seem, what I do is whatever insignificant action--positive or negative--I'm about to take that will impact the environment, (and everything does) I think of that, "TIMES A MILLION, OR A HUNDRED MILLION"... One brochure doesn't seem like much, but you're either part of the collective millions who are taking the brochures (having a significantly negative impact on the environment) or part of the collective millions NOT taking the brochure, having a significant positive impact on the environment...which group do you want to be part of??

Remember: the same logic of "one brochure won't hurt" is the same mindset as "my vote won't count"....millions of people saying the same thing DOES hurt and DOES count!!!

[JessinDC]

We should replace the Sierra Club daily tip writer with a robot that always grammar and spell checks. Robots are clearly more sustainable than humans, who are wasteful and incapable of grammatic perfection.

[Joanne Murphy]

I believe "loose" should read "lose", no?