Our Campaign to Cut Catalog Waste Creates a Big Stir

Posted: 14-Jan-2003; Updated: 27-May-2005

Since we issued our new report Does Your Catalog Care? in November and launched a campaign to get catalog companies to switch to recycled paper, more than 22,000 Environmental Defense activists sent e-mails to their favorite catalogers that are still printing on virgin paper.

Thousands more took the opportunity to thank those already using recycled paper throughout the pages of their catalogs: Norm Thompson, Omaha Steaks, Disney Catalog, Solutions, Waterfront Living, and Early Winters.

According to sources close to the catalog and paper supply industry, our e-mail campaign has sparked a flurry of inquiries about recycled paper from some of the targeted catalog companies. Moreover, other catalog companies have signaled an interest in using recycled paper in their catalogs. We continue to work on this issue and invite companies to sit down with us and discuss the benefits of using recycled paper.

That's the good news. "Unfortunately," said Victoria Mills, Environmental Defense project manager of the campaign, "some companies have responded by continuing to perpetuate the same old myths about recycled paper - among them, that recycled paper is not cost-effective, isn't the same quality as virgin and is not widely available (it is on all counts!)."

Another excuse companies give for not switching is that using the most widely available and cost-competitive recycled paper (with 10 percent postconsumer content) doesn't really do much, if anything, to help the environment. "That's simply not true," said Mills, citing the fact that if the entire catalog industry began using this grade of recycled paper, the savings in wood alone would be enough to stretch a six-foot fence across the United States seven times.

Stay tuned for more updates as catalog companies get the word that recycled paper is better for the environment and makes sense economically.

Learn why recycled paper is the right choice for the Earth: Read our new Q & A on the environmental benefits of recycled paper.

Find out more about Cutting Catalog Waste.