SNEWS Editorial: Drowning in catalogs and press kits — what a waste

An alert reader sent us the photo below, showing three stacks of promotional materials for the upcoming Outdoor Retailer Summer Market, all containing invites to come by a booth and check out the new wares.

This is a specialty retailer who, like many, would honestly prefer to receive just one catalog or press kit for the store prior to any trade show. And, to make it worse, he tells us catalogs and invitations to summer market events, like those in the photo, continue to come in for people who have not even worked at the store in over a year.

Most catalogs, he tells us, go directly into the recycling bin — unopened. We can empathize. Just today, the SNEWS® office dumped over 28 separate pieces of mail directly into a recycling bin, all because they were extra, unneeded, unwanted copies. In one case, we received mail for two folks who have not worked at SNEWS in over three years.

Time to stop this waste! Yes, it is extra work to purge mailing lists and, to ensure you are mailing ONLY to those folks who truly want to receive your mail, but for an industry that proclaims to be green, isn’t this one place we can make a real difference in waste reduction immediately?

To that end, we’re going to relaunch a program SNEWS® became infamous for years ago — The Wastrel Awards. If you’re one of those companies caught burying retailers and press under piles of catalogs, or sending silly PR that serves no purpose other than to add more material to the landfills…expect to start receiving recognition. Don’t want an award? Then think before you slap stamps on a pile of catalogs or fire off an avalanche of promotional material to who knows where.

—SNEWS® Editors