Wastefulness

Junk Ads in Newspapers: Newspapers are hard enough to read cover to cover so you know you’re going to have unread newsprint left over. You also know you’re gonna have read newsprint left over, so, you pile it up for recycling. So far, so good.

But what about the ‘junk’ ads? You know, the classified and the multiple pages of apples, meat or diapers for $2.00? The tennis shoes that you couldn’t possibly buy every week are advertised every week. How about advertising them every other week and save on everything. We know you’re there, shoe store.

Wouldn’t it be nice to get the ads separately (or not at all)? Let’s say, you’re looking for a job or a used car and you want to look at the classifieds while you have a coffee. There’s the news and over there are the classifieds. You could get just what you wanted instead of filling the trashcan with the rest of the paper because you just wanted the car ads?

Frankly, if I could do that, I would buy the classifieds more often than I look at them when they come with my Sunday Times. See, having them forced on me just makes me mad because it makes me feel guilty because it’s wasted natural resources and all I wanted was the news. It makes me feel guilty because I didn’t even try to read through them – kinda like when your mom puts food on your plate that you don’t want and you leave it and then the grown ups say there are starving kids in the world. I hate that ploy. Why can’t I just buy the part I want? It would save resources and create less garbage and less recycling for my garbage men to haul. The department of the newspaper that created the classifieds could get paid for their portion rather than mooching off the mother lode of the daily newspaper and maybe it would be even become a better product because it would was loved – you know, it would be there because people really wanted it.

Besides, why do the stores in our neighborhoods feel they have to get their ads to us in the paper, anyway? They have the same papers at their front door. Are they really so desperate for us to pay them less for some eggs? Just reduce the price of the freaking eggs. Jeeez.