The Waste of Victoria’s Secret

I’m absolutely blown away by the amount of paper Victoria’s Secret wastes on their catalogs.  I think we must receive a new catalog at least once every week in our mailbox and it’s because we order from them, not because we want the catalog.  What’s even more frustrating is that there’s no indication on the catalog that they use any form of recycled paper for the printing.  Thinking about the amount of paper they use and the amount of gasoline it must take to transport their catalogs to the masses around this country makes my head spin!  Maybe I’ll just tell them not to ship the darn thing to us anymore.  In the meantime, I’ll continue doing my part by throwing them into the recycling bin.

On the flip side, we just bought new print cartridges for our HP printer.  I’m impressed with the steps HP goes to make recycling printer cartridges an easy process.  I know our toner cartridges at work come with prepaid UPS labels to ship the empty cartridges right back to them for recycling.  Here at home, it’s super easy by going onto their website and requesting free, postage-paid envelopes to be sent to you so you can drop in your cartridges and send them back too.  I’ve also noticed most of the packaging for their products is recyclable.  They use cardboard boxes with none of those annoying, non-recyclable plastic bubbles.  Plus, the plastic they use to hold the cartridges securely in the box is a #1…making them totally recyclable in my area.

It’s funny how once you start recycling at home, you really begin to pay attention to the packaging of everyday products.  I’ve even formed some purchasing decisions around the packaging that the item comes in.  But, those purchasing decisions have led to our recycling bin overflowing every couple of days while we really only generate about one bag of trash per week.  That makes me feel great!