I love to read. Sadly I don’t always have the time to pick up a book and read it from cover to cover. There are days I’m lucky if I can read a few pages let alone a chapter or two. That is why I enjoy reading magazines. I am able to read articles in a matter of minutes, plus I find a lot of great recipes and ideas for around the home.
I subscribe to several magazines. Mostly they are “house & home” type magazines and entertainment magazines.
I know I can subscribe online but I don’t like reading magazines on my tablet, Kindle or laptop. I prefer to have the magazine in my hand.
I always recycle magazines when I am done with them. Sometimes I give them away to people who want them and at times I’ve even donated them.
This morning I went to our mailbox because I forgot to get the mail yesterday. Inside I found four magazines. Three of the magazines were covered in plastic. The reason for this is so that the publishers can put extra junk mail inside.
Junk mail inserts from Good Housekeeping & Women’s Day magazines – both wrapped in plastic to bring these “offers” to me.
Inside two magazines I found loose inserts to subscribe to other magazines. It was not necessary to wrap my current magazine in plastic just to include a page to subscribe to another magazine. Instead they could have just e-mailed me the subscription invitation or sent it to me as a post card that I could have easily recycled and not have to worry about the excess plastic. They are also popular magazines. If I wanted to subscribe to them I could go online and subscribe or pick up a copy at a local retailer and use one of their subscription card inserts. I don’t need to get JUNK MAIL tucked inside my magazines, wrapped in plastic.
The third magazine was a bit different. Instead of an insert for another magazine subscription there were three different pieces of JUNK MAIL – Save $200 on a piece of exercise equipment, a “value combo” deal from Omaha Steaks and a bunch of coupons in a small circular.
WHY? Why send these along with my magazine? Why can’t you just stuff these things inside the Sunday paper with the rest of the coupons? Why send me extra junk that I have to dispose of ? I subscribe to the MAGAZINE, not unwanted junk mail.
What irks me the most is that all three of these magazines were wrapped in plastic. Plastic is non-biodegradable. These plastic wraps are eventually going to find their way to a landfill or left to drift aimlessly in the ocean. This same plastic can be accidentally eaten by wildlife or sea creature. It cannot be digested which means certain death for these poor creatures.
As much as I love to read magazines I am seriously considering not renewing my subscriptions because of this WASTE of paper and plastic. Suddenly finding a fabulous recipe or reading a heart warming story doesn’t seem as nice knowing that I just helped to pollute our environment with plastic and junk mail. Sigh…
I hope magazine publishers will reconsider this ridiculous practice. I understand you need to sell ads and make money but there are other ways to do that. If need be put the junk mail inside the magazine with tear off pages so that they don’t fall out. Please stop wrapping magazines in plastic.
What do you think about this? Sound off. Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments section.
Junk mail wrapped in plastic around the Everyday with Rachel Ray magazine.
Kimberly
Not sure what the answer is, but I see focus on bringing in short term money to struggling industries.
I suspect the magazines are covering their budget costs by selling advertizing beyond the ads typically found inside the magazines. The plastic is the only way they can verify that the extra advertising gets into subscriber’s hands while also saving the cost of separate mailing. I’m very attached to reading the daily paper. They are also trimming the reporting staff while selling more ads.
I hate when I am reading a magazine and those subscribe cards fall out on the floor. I can not bend over due to my disability and it hard to get them picked up when that happens. I wish they would either attach them or quit putting them in there.
my boyfriend wanted a magazine subscription to dwell, it used to be filled with really cool houses and architecture, now it is filled with ads for sinks, appliances, lighting, etc and maybe features one house. If you have close people nearby, I would have each of you guys subscribe to one different magazine and then you switch them. Each household saves money and waste.