Reality Check
November 7, 2007
Okay, time for a reality check. A lot of you wrote in to question my figures on the last posting regarding China’s huge appetite for America’s waste paper. I quoted the China Daily News’ figure that the U.S. recycles 70 percent of its paper while China only recycles 30 percent of their’s, thus the Chinese need to import waste paper from the U.S. and other sources to meet their huge and fast growing need to produce paper.
Okay, I confess, no one wrote in.
I only feared they would because I couldn’t imagine the U.S. recycling 70 percent of anything, so I checked it out. The only mention of 70 percent regarding U.S. recycling habits I could find was references to it as an achievable goal for ALL recycling, not just paper. Duly noted. We do have to try harder, but that is the American way, no? Yes!
And getting back to the Post Office and its new ad campaign, I found two flyers flogging it recently in my daily dose of junk, I mean BULK mail. Two flyers have come, one an intense pink card with a to do list list headed “Today” telling me all the things that I will do with great speed and ease thanks to the swift and swell new services they offer. Only problem is, while I can now “put a hold on (my) mail from the airport,” I still can’t stop the flow of junk mail coming into my house while I am at home.
Indeed, the only way to escape the daily onslaught of junk mail is to go on vacation–permanently. Leave the country. To that end, I’m checking with a friend who lives in Paris to see what the junk mail stream is like there. I’ll keep you posted.
Oh, and after I did all the spiffy new things the postal service wanted me to today, I would “have the time to do more of what (I) want.” The other flyer is aimed for the upcoming holidays we’ll all soon be hellbent for. It, too, promises all kinds of labor saving services that will give you “something you can really use. More time.”
Hey, how about the eight months of my life I understand I’ll be spending sorting through all the junk mail I’m forced to receive daily?
And what would I do with those eight months should I magically have them given back to me? Or even the few minutes I save creating my own “holiday postage” (will the Spirit of Christmas save me a special patch of purgatory if I can’t bring myself to read the directions for that trick?)
What will I do with all this new found free time thanks to the U.S. post?
I will blog and then blog some more until Americans everywhere rise up and insist on a national Do Not Mail list. It would be like the Do Not Call list established by the federal government in 2003 which now boasts 145 million phone numbers registered. It’s been extremely effective. The government has even prosecuted several dozen cases of solicitors violating the do not call law and collected $20 million in fines, according to a recent ABC News story.
It’s been so successful that we’ve all lost a favorite topic to complain about. Where our lives were once afflicted with chronic and invasive unsolicited telephone calls,fresh scar tissue blooms.
Now we complain about junk mail.
And I hate complainers. So knock it off and get yourself to http://www.newdream.org/junkmail/ and send a missive to congress to establish a national do not mail registery.
Go, do it now, I’ll be along shortly, I’ve just got a few more piles of important surveys, free gifts, time sensitive material and life improving catalogs to sift through and toss.
Oh, yes, and then I’ve got to stop by usps.com to see how much time they can save me.
