They're as much a part of the holidays as Santa
By Heidi Dawley Dec 3, 2007
It was just a few years ago, every Christmas time it seemed, that women broke out their furs to shop and go off to parties, and how elegant they looked, especially against fallen or swirling snow.
Less so these days. Furs still sell, of course, but the animal rights folks have knocked at least some of the thrill out of wearing them.
Now another American Christmas tradition is facing a similar attack, the catalogue. Throughout the year they flood into American mailboxes, but Christmastime is when we see the real surge, whether it's from L.L. Bean, the Maine outdoorsy people, or Garrett Wade, the high-end tool shop, whose latest cover is in bright red with ribbons strewn over a toolbox of drill bits.
Blame oil at $90-plus a barrel, which in these recent months has spurred green initiatives, leaving Americans notably more sensitive than ever to the environmental waste they create in their daily lives.
Which brings us to trees.
This year alone, 8 million tons of trees, some from the very forests where that favorite Christmas animal, the reindeer, aka the Caribou, cavorts, will be chopped up and turned into catalogues, some 20 billion, up from 18 billion just two years ago. Never mind the surge in online shopping, catalogue shopping seems only to grow.
That has environmentalist upset. “It’s an egregious waste of natural resources,” says Ginger Cassady, an activist at ForestEthics, a group that campaigns against the destruction of virgin forests.
So some of the big environmental groups, including the high-profile National Wildlife Federation and the National Resources Defense Council, have gotten together and launched a web site, catalogchoice.org, that allows consumers to opt out of receiving those catalogues they no longer want.
It’s not the first to offer such a service – the Direct Marketing Association has one for which users pay a small fee.
This is the first free one.
“It’s not about ridding life of all catalogues,” says Jenny Powers, spokesperson for National Resources Defense Council. “But there is a real interest and thirst from members--and everyone--in doing those little things that each one of us can do in our life to be a little bit more green, make a bit of a difference and help the environment. This is one of those things.”
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, a little over a month after it launched, the site had more than 170,000 people sign up.
If that doesn't seem a large number when you think of all the Americans who get catalogues, consider this. It will mean 21 million-plus fewer catalogues will be sent out over the next year. That's 7.6 million pounds of paper and 56,256 trees that will not be cut down, by National Resources Defense Council estimates. The energy saved would be enough to power 1,323 homes for a year. And in terms of carbon pollution, it would equate to taking 2,188 cars off the road for a year.
In addition to getting people to shed their unwanted catalogues, there's a push by groups like ForestEthics to get companies to do a better job of cleaning their mailing lists of duplicates and printing them on the proper paper. That's paper that's at least 20 percent recycled and it's paper that doesn’t come from environmentally important virgin forests where logging has never happened before. These include some in Canada where the Caribou live.
To that end, ForestEthics puts out a ranking of the big catalogue senders as “naughty,” "nice,” or “checking twice.”
The nice list has grown, up to nine from just three in 2005, and that includes L.L. Bean, Patagonia, Victoria Secret and Williams-Sonoma. But there are still three in the checking twice catalogue--those with work still to do--and nine in the naughty column, including Sears, the creator of the 188-page Wish Book, and Land’s End, which is owned by Sears.
“The trend is good. The laggards get a lump of coal in their stockings,” says Will Craven of ForestEthics.
For its part, the DMA says it is actively engaged in a range of programs to help its members make their catalogue businesses greener. But it also notes that more trees are planted than harvested every day in the U.S. and Canada and that there is now more forestland than there was back in 1950.
But then again, that almost seems beside the point. As trees are increasingly seen as living things, like the reindeer who live in their shade, their harvesting will carry a burden of guilt.
Meanwhile, elsewhere in popcult, “Enchanted” topped the box offices over the weekend for the second week in a row, with $17.0 million in ticket sales, followed once again by “This Christmas,” which brought in $8.4 million.
In DVD rentals for the week ended Nov. 25, according to IMDb.com, new releases “Live Free or Die Hard” and “Harispray” topped the chart, with last week’s No. 1, “Shrek the Third,” falling to No. 3.
On iTunes this morning, Flo Rida’s “Low” was No. 1 for the fourth straight week, with Alicia Keys’ “No One” at No. 2 for its third week in a row.
And in books, James Patterson’s latest title, “Double Cross,” remained on top of The New York Times’ hardcover fiction best-sellers list for the week ended Nov. 24, and was again No. 1 on USA Today’s book chart for the week ended Nov. 25.
TOP MOVIES Weekend Box Office Estimates
Weekend of Nov. 30-Dec.2, 2007
Rank
MOVIE
Engagements
Box office (millions)
1
Enchanted (
Buena Vista)
3,730
$17.02
2
This Christmas (Screen Gems)
1,858
$8.40
3
Beowulf (Warner Bros.)
3,249
$7.88
4
Awake (MGM)
2,002
$6.01
5
Hitman (Fox)
2,468
$5.80
6
Fred Claus (Warner Bros.)
3,420
$5.50
7
August Rush (Warner Bros.)
2,310
$5.15
8
No Country for Old Men (Paramount Vintage)
995
$4.50
9
Bee Movie (
Paramount)
3,150
$4.47
10
American Gangster (Universal)
2,699
$4.28
Source: Yahoo Movies
IMDb TOP DVD RENTALS Week ending November 25, 2007
Rank
TITLE
Last week
1
Live Free or Die Hard
-
2
Hairspray
-
3
Shrek the Third
1
4
Ocean’s Thirteen
2
5
Rescue Dawn
-
6
I Now Pronounce You Chuck and Larry
3
7
Ratatouille
5
8
Spider-Man 3
4
9
The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause
-
10
Deck the Halls
6
Source: IMDB
ITUNES TOP 8 SONG DOWNLOADS for week ended Monday, December 3, 2007
Rank
TITLE
1
Low, Flo Rida feat. T-Pain
2
No One, Alicia Keys
3
Apologize, Timbaland
4
Kiss Kiss, Chris Brown feat. T-Pain
5
Clumsy, Fergie
6
Paralyzer, Finger Eleven
7
Tattoo, Jordin Sparks
8
All I Want For Christmas is You, Mariah Carey
Source: iTunes
NEW YORKTIMES BESTSELLING BOOKS Week ending November 24, 2007
Fiction (hardback)
Rank
TITLE
Last week
Weeks on chart
1
Double Cross by James Patterson
1
2
2
The Choice by Nicholas Sparks
12
9
3
Playing for Pizza by John Grisham
11
9
4
Stone Cold by David Baldacci
3
3
5
Confessor by Terry Goodkind
2
2
Nonfiction (hardback)
1
An Inconvenient Book by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe
-
1
2
I Am America (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert
1
7
3
Boom! by Tom Brokaw
2
3
4
Good Dog. Stay. by Anna Quindlen
-
1
5
Clapton by Eric Clapton
3
7
Fiction (paperback)
1
Next by Michael Crichton
1
2
2
Cross by James Patterson
3
9
3
Wife for Hire by Janet Evanovich
2
4
4
I Am Legend by Richard Matheson
-
4
5
Brother Odd by Dean Koontz
-
4
Nonfiction (paperback)
1
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
1
44
2
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
-
1
3
Into the Wild by Jon Krakauer
2
131
4
Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and David Oliver Relin
3
43
5
90 Minutes in Heaven by Don Piper with Cecil Murphey
4
57
Source: New York Times
USATODAY BESTSELLING BOOKS Week ending November 25, 2007
Rank
TITLE
Last week
1
Double Cross by James Patterson
1
2
You: Staying Young by Michael F. Roizen, Mehmet C. Oz
2
3
The Pillars of Earth by Ken Follett
3
4
The Innocent Man by John Grisham
-
5
I Am America (And So Can You) by Stephen Colbert
10
6
An Inconvenient Book by Glenn Beck and Kevin Balfe
-
7
Love In the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
4
8
Deceptively Delicious by Jessica Seinfeld
6
9
Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert
7
10
The Daring Book for Girls by Andrea J. Buchanan and Miriam Peskowitz
