A Pound of Dead Trees!

[Weird Harold]

I don't check my snail mail box very often, because I don't get much snail mail except bills and account statements and I pretty know when each of them is going to arrive.

Today, I checked the mail for the first time since last Saturday -- six days of mail delivery -- and for some reason decided to drag the entire contents of the box back to the apartment instead of trashing the junk as I pass by the dumpster on the way back and then decided to weigh the contents: 1 pound 7 ounces paper was in my mailbox.

It was a pretty much a normal week's mail, one statement from the Credit Union, a new Avon brochure from my-daughter-the-Avon-Lady, and four "special offers" from the cable company -- a total of about eight ounces of mail actually addressed to me.

The rest of it, was ads and other junk-mail address to "occupant" and "current resident" for just under a pound of pure junk -- add in the special offers from the cable company and it comes to almost exactly one pound of dead trees that the Post Office delivers but seldom make it further than the nearest trash can (if they make it that far, which is a different rant.)

I know that bulk mailings are what really is keeping the Post Office in business in competition with overnight express companies and electronic mail, but it it really worth having the Post Office stay in business when two-thirds (by weight) of what they deliver is just trees killed for no real purpose?

In this apartment complex alone, they delivered 240 pounds of paper this week -- that's over six tons of junk mail a year just in one apartment complex!/b] -- How many trees are being wasted nationwide just to keep the US Post Office and biulk mailers in business?

Wouldn't it be better for eeryone -- except bulk mailers and the post office -- if those trees were left standing so they could reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide? Can we use Global Warming as an excuse to finally kill one of the biggest annoyances in the USA?

[/rant]

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

The Post Office will be history in a generation. They lose volume every year. I bought several mail order items just before Christmas, most of them arrived by the 24th. This is very unusual. So I figure volume dropped again.

 

[tickledkitty]

All my Christmas mail orders came via UPS or Fed Ex. They all arrived by the 24th too.

The thing that annoys me is all the catalogs I get. They've slowed a bit, but during the few months prior to Christmas, I was getting 4 or 5 a day. Sometimes more. It's the same stuff in them too most of the time.

 

[Ǽltya]

Save a tree. Eliminate your catalogs.

 

[tickledkitty]

Save a tree. Eliminate your catalogs.

Morning, YaYa.

I do want to recieve them. Just not quite so many duplicates.

 

[TxRad]

Junk mail, the spam from the post office.

I don't toss it anymore. I have a firepit out back that we like to burn in at night. I roll the junk mail up and use it to start the fire with. If I have to many rolls, I add them like a log. Makes for some interesting colors in the fire sometimes. It's also a welcome addition to the fallen limbs that we burn.

 

[tickledkitty]

I saw a contraption (in one of my catalogs ) that makes logs out of paper and junk mail. It rolls really tight, and then they supposedly burn similarly to regular logs.

 

[Weird Harold]

I saw a contraption (in one of my catalogs ) that makes logs out of paper and junk mail. It rolls really tight, and then they supposedly burn similarly to regular logs.

Those have been around since the Fifties. We used to have one to roll newpaper for the fireplace when I was a kid. My Dad didn't like it because he could roll a newspaper tighter by hand than we kids could with the machine.

 

[oggbashan]

I saw a contraption (in one of my catalogs ) that makes logs out of paper and junk mail. It rolls really tight, and then they supposedly burn similarly to regular logs.

They are typical of catalog purchases. They sound better than they actually are in use. There was one in the UK that effectively made papier mache out of newspapers. By the time the "log" had dried out it was covered with mould and stank on the fire.

Og

 

[Weird Harold]

They are typical of catalog purchases. They sound better than they actually are in use. There was one in the UK that effectively made papier mache out of newspapers. By the time the "log" had dried out it was covered with mould and stank on the fire.

Og

That would be the version that comes with a half-dozen different salt solutions to produce vari-colored flames? The soggy, moldy, stinking paper-mache logs sound real familiar.

 

[oggbashan]

That would be the version that comes with a half-dozen different salt solutions to produce vari-colored flames? The soggy, moldy, stinking paper-mache logs sound real familiar.

That's it. The so-called De Luxe version.

Og

 

[starrkers]

They are typical of catalog purchases. They sound better than they actually are in use. There was one in the UK that effectively made papier mache out of newspapers. By the time the "log" had dried out it was covered with mould and stank on the fire.

Og

We've got one of them somewhere. If you think ahead and make the bricks in summer so they don't go mouldy, they don't hold together.