I went to Staples to get some office supplies. Now I haven’t recycled my ink cartridges there in a while but they use to give me a $3.00 coupon right there to use for my next purchase. Well, they changed policy and I would have had to fill out an application (one colored piece of paper) for a staples rewards card (plastic card) and they would send my coupon in the mail (more paper, transportation etc) for me to drive back there (more fuel) to use my plastic card and paper coupon as a reward for recycling. Is it just me or is that a bit over the top? Waste, Waste, Waste.I understand from a business perspective wanting to get names, retain customers with loyalty programs etc, but still.

While I’m on the subject let me share my Victoria Secret story. Yes I’m a sell out and shop there, but that is not the story. One day when I was shopping they were running a promotion if you tried on one of their new bras you would get $10 (or something) off your purchase. So fine I will try one on, I’m in the dressing room anyway. The girl in the dressing room writes my name on their little glossy colored paper card to prove that I tried it on. I take the coupon  directly to the register to pay where she takes the coupon, tears it in half and throws it in the garbage! That really made me crazy. And to top it off I used my reusable shopping bag I got from emagineGreen and the girl was looking for a price tag for the bag. She had no concept of people actually doing that. Wow.
Does anyone else see the waste of time and resources in this? Instead of blogging I should be writing to these companies and offering alternative solutions. Right now I just want to bitch about it. I will write someone about it later.
It’s crazy how thoughtless we can be as a society on just the everyday stuff. It’s not intentional, just going around on automatic so much with a million things on our minds.
It’s like I said before, we really need to start paying attention and just changing our habits so they become the new way of living our daily lives and doing business.