catalogs and the landfill
Hello,
Today I am writing about a little crusade I have taken up. It seems that I get piles and piles of catalogs in the mail. Most of them go straight to the recycle box, but this should not be the responsibility of the Antrim county taxpayers to pay for the disposal of excess unwanted catalogs. So a few weeks ago I started calling every one of the companies that sends us catalogs and asked to be removed from their lists. I expect that this will work, however, there is one company that I have been battling for 2 years to quit sending catalogs.
We get our cardboard from a company called Uline. Uline is very good at service, and the prices are good. However, Uline sends catalogs every few weeks, and they send one to every person who ordered from them, so at first we got one catalog, then Uline was sending 2, then we were getting 4 catalogs every few weeks. I complained and got it down to one but I cannot get Uline to quit sending them altogether. I just received a new one today addressed to Betsy. It weighs 1.5 lbs.
It seems crazy to conserve and recycle (paper or plastic, reusable bags) only to have Uline wantonly waste many times the amount of resources that we can conserve.
I wrote Uline again today and I told them to check out our blog. We should be able to opt out of their wasteful catalog marketing scheme, and maybe seeing the Uline name associated with anti-conservation will move that along.
Yes! Grassroots practical action. I wish you luck. I’d like to do a story on recycling in Antrim County–spring’s a good time for that, as we all crawl out of our burrows and think it might be a good time for a little cleanup. I’ll let you know if I find any wonderful solutions. Meanwhile, does Uline know that the unwanted catalogs quickly become, um, TP for Marv Rubingh’s cows?
Uline is the worst for sending catalogs. I too receive at least one catalog a month from them. One month I received 4. I ordered one thing several years ago that we needed once for a special project and although I have call them and tell them to stop every time I get a catalog they still send their thick, heavy catalog every month.
Ugh! They kill me. A giant Uline catalog with every order. Plus the catalogs they send every month. It’s a ridiculous waste. Knowing that they do it to every one of their customers is appalling. I have also called to complain, but they still keep coming. I rarely even look at the catalog, prefer to look at their website.
I wonder how much they could reduce their prices if they stopped printing so many huge, glossy color catalogs.
We get them too! We have also called and emailed several times to try to stop the constant stream of 2lb catalogs, but the break only lasts a couple of months before they start up again. We’ve even received orders where the packing list that says “*No Catalog With Order” is packaged in a plastic sleeve WITH A CATALOG! What a waste. I don’t think anyone from our office has ever once placed an order using anything but their website. Wonderful service, products, and pricing, but the catalog situation is terrible.
It is very easy to opt out, every time you get a new catalog, call and give the customer number off the back. It may take a month or two of calling in, but if you do it for each catalog you, you will soon stop seeing them all together.
Yes and No, I did contact them repeatedly, however, if anyone from our office ordered through them again we would soon be back on the list receiving up to 5 catalogs, one for each name that had placed an order.
Uline,
This is simply not true. I have a chain of 36, yes, THIRTY SIX emails canceling catalogs and they are still being sent to my place of employment only now, they have companies listed that have NEVER existed in our building.
I have made it clear that we do not want any future catalogs send to our address and was then told that these names are purchased from mailing lists and essentially can not be stopped.
If you don’t like junkmail(and pounds of it) I would suggest never ordering from this company.