That's a waste of a perfectly good tree!

I don't get it... why all these corporations, whether they're credit card bureaus like Capital One, for instance, or they're your local bank, but it's ridiculous how much paper they use to try and get people to join their company. I get a letter nearly every damn day from Capital One telling me I should check my credit or apply for one of their credit cards. I also get letters from my bank every other day asking if I want to apply for different programs they have.

I've called Capital One and talked to one of their super-nice robots and "opted-out" of their mailing list. It took about 2 months, but they only send me a piece of mail now every 3 days or so. Still, I know I'm not the only one recieving letters from them. I'm sure there's at least 100,000 more people out there that just don't care enough to call and "opt-out" of their mailing list or their robotic representative couldn't understand their name or address (which I fear may have happened to me when I called haha). That's a lot of freaking paper man! As for my bank, they have my phone number. Couldn't they just call me and ask me if I'm interested in their new plans or services? Instead of sending me an envelope with 2-3 sheets of paper and a second envelope enclosed within all that?? That's just a waste of a perfectly good tree.

They're cutting off our oxygen if you think about it. Suffocating us with ideas and services that less than half the people that are notified actually care about. I think it's ridiculous and have thought so for a long time. Shouldn't there be a cut-off date for mail being sent, opting-IN through the internet? I still get mail from silly corporations I opted-in with over the net 6 years ago. It's horrendous and a horrible thing to do to mother nature.

Why can't they just pay for everyone to have an extra cell phone so, instead of sending us all this paper/junk mail, they can just call? I think it would be much more efficient, maybe not towards mother nature, as we'd be using more plastic... but at the price of that plastic, they could invest in more jobs as service reps. I think it would be a short-term solution to a long-term problem.

What do you think o them apples??

 

you're being far too sensible about this...waste is an approved part of the process for corporations, even though they have been approved as 'legal entities'. they write off all the expenses related to marketing and research. they are now in the process of proving that all those trees in the amazon rainforest, as they are rotting from the drought, put off more co2 than they absorb; therefore, they are a polluter, just like cars, etc..

in the meantime, they use factories to print the ads they send you, which are obviously running on solar power, the people in them are vegetarians who bicycle to work, the concrete for the walls was made from recycled material and the computers (etc..) are all green as approved by bill gates. they don't want cell phones...you might use those for something other than their advertising!

see how misguided one can be? advertising good! repeat it 1,000 times....

i take the shit they send me (if it doesn't have colored ink on it) and run it through a shredder for chicken nests and animal bedding. the colored shit, i don't trust to put next to my animals.

 

i recycle all that junk mail

or i send it back to the bank with annoying, anonymous messages in the postage paid envelope

 

Most of our oxygen comes from cyanobacteria, so cutting up trees which can be grown in a two decades isn't really a concern for global oxygen production.

Global warming could be, and theres evidence that large forested areas act as a buffer against warmer global surface temperatures even aside from carbon dioxide metabolism.

 

^^would you be able to site either of those two facts? i'd like to read more about that

 

It all depends on where the paper comes from. Cutting down wildlife habitats to harvest paper needs to be done sustainably and smart.

I'm much more worried about animal migrations, habitats, etc that are affected by deforestation. And the output from the processing. Where does the bleach go that whitens our paper? How much electricity is being used? Those kind of things.

I support tree farm paper though, because at least they're using the land to grow trees. If they weren't growing trees, there would probably be a factory there instead, producing the disposable tablet PCs we will all eventually write on.

 

Yes.

Cyanobacteria and Phytoplankton, are responsible for most of the earths oxygen production.

http://ecology.com/features/mostimportantorganism/

Heres an article about how old growth forests act as carbon traps, which was a part of the second point I made.

http://rainforests.mongabay.com/0907.htm

The other point was that rainforests reduced global surface temperatures even aside from their carbon trapping is based on their reflectivity being higher than that of grasslands and farms which I read in a book last year, but I couldn't immediately pull up a Google result.

I'll try and find something more comprehensive.

 

^^thanks!

 

Can anyone explain to me how exactly is paper made out of trees?

 

http://www.idahoforests.org/paprmake.htm

Also, Google is your friend.

 

Paper is a renewable resource.

I no longer get too many offers- I think the fact that I maintain a 0 balance on both my cards makes me a less than profitable pigeon to pluck. I used to mail the postage paid envelopes out either empty or stuffed full of the Publisher's Clearing House crap that did not bear my name or address. Charging those big banks with "wasting paper" is like arresting John Gotti for jaywalking.

 

but it's about the best we lowly citizens can do.

 

Where I live, some company tore down a large amount of trees to build a subdivision, and they didn't even end up building it afterwards. That really pissed me off.