Rant: Online Stores Hate the Environment


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I do a good bit of my shopping online because 1) I can avoid crowds and bad music at stores, 2) I can actually buy the products I want (which I usually can't do in local stores), 3) it is usually faster and easier to search the online stores, 4) the prices (including shipping) are frequently lower, and 5) I can do it naked. When I place an online order I have also established myself to that store as an online customer. But when the box arrives with my goods it almost always includes a paper catalogue for that company. The checkout process sometimes includes an opt-out option for junk emails, but I can't seem to stop these people from wasting paper and ink. And what's worse is that several years after I purchased a single item from a company they continue to regularly send me their PAPER catalogues.

Not all companies do this; I've never received a paper catalogue from Amazon.com, Zappos, or Peet's Coffee. But it seems that most companies do like to waste paper, ink, manufacturing time, shipping weight costs, and inflict all the environmental costs these come with. Companies like Sierra Trading Post, Land's End, Dell, B&H Photo, Camphor, Moosejaw, LensCrafters, Bed Bath and Beyond, Trader Joe's, Apple, GoDaddy, and myriad more are determined to ruin the environment and inconvenience me and my mail carrier as much as they can. It all goes straight to the recycling bin. I mean directly, without even a glance. But not everyone is as dedicated to recycling as I am, so all this junk mail (and the waste material from generating them) is certainly stuffing our landfills with needless tons of paper waste.

I realize that some people actually like these catalogues, or even if they don't like them they do look through them and might occasionally order something after seeing it in the catalogue (even if they order it online). So what I am requesting is that these companies make opting out of the paper mail (including the ones enclosed in the product box) as easy and consistent as the junk email (which is not to say that these are totally consistent, I still get junk emails from some of these companies too). Furthermore, the convention ought to be (and this is the moral "ought") that the default is NOT to receive them. Paper mail is phasing out, and this crap constitutes an undue strain on our environment and even expends social costs without generating much social or personal benefit. It's time these companies stepped up to their environmental responsibility and cease sending out this garbage and annoying customers with their catalogues.


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About me

  • I'm Aaron Bramson
  • At the University of Michigan


  • This blog is an extension of my normal website (www.bramson.net) where I used to post various articles in my critic's corner section. Using this blog provides easier maintenance, greater functionality, and a wider readership of my thoughts, opinions, and complaints about life and living it.

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