If you’re like us, your mailbox gets bombarded with unsolicited junk almost daily. Ads, flyers, leaflets, menus, catalogues etc. mostly printed in colour ink on high quality paper, and all of which you never look at other than to throw it into the recycling/waste bin.
900 000 Publi-Sacs are distributed weekly (more than 46million yearly) in their accompanying plastic bags. It costs the province of Quebec an estimated $1million a year to recycle all this junk-mail, which often arrives in the recycling bin straight from the mailbox un-read! And what’s more? According to our own McGill Marketing profs, unsolicited ads aren’t even an effective Marketing tool for many of the businesses who practice it. Considering most perpectives, these distributions are a waste and a nuissance.
If you’re of the rare coupon-cutting breed that finds these distributions useful, that’s fine, get your coupons and ads online www.publisac.ca. If you are of the mind that they are simply pollution and a bother there is an extremely simple way to reduce this waste and bother.
What you can do:
1) Get a sticker for your mailbox! We’ll be distributing stickers this week and next week at Bronfman so keep an eye out for us (we are Vaughn, Etienne and Phil)! Or go to your local “Eco-Quartier” to pick one up. To make your own, it needs to bear very close resemblance to the official city issued one that you can find at ungestesimple (you can also print this out if you want to), and be no less than 3.5 by 3.5cm, and no bigger than 6 by 6cm.
2) Stick it on your mailbox! You’re done; no more hassle, no more clutter, no more invasion of your space…
However, there is an IMPORTANT optional 3rd step:
3) Notify us of your postal code in the comments section of this post and we’ll contact Publi-Sac, through an alliance with Eco-Quartier Jeanne Mance, and tell them to actually stop printing packages for those on our list. You’ll also be entered into a draw on April 9th to win two meals at Lola Rosa’s restaurant on Milton and Lorne! We will contact you by email.
YOU’RE DONE!!! Tell a friend or your fellow apartment dwellers to do the same.
If you receive addressed advertising and want it to stop, register your name with the Canadian Marketing Association “Do Not Contact” Service
To find your ‘Eco-Quartier’ go to Ville de Montreal: Eco-Quartier
Filed under: Dialogue
What do you guys think? Does anyone actually open up the pubi-sacs they receive and find them useful? do coupon-clippers still exist?
It’s pretty clear that our stance is that they’re a pain in the ass, and a very wasteful one at that. But we’re open-minded and want to get a less biased idea of how people feel about these things.
