How Much Advertising Is Too Much?

Photo - Sketa Oz

​We all love our advertising...or do we?  It benefits the astute businessman and company holder or retailer and yes even us, the consumer.  A bargain is everything, isn't it?  To know where and when the best bargain can be had or where one can find the most suitable toy for last minute birthdays or Xmas gifts, is crucial. 

We think, we need to know and businesses feel they need to remind us that they are still on the planet - to sell us a billion and one items that they convince us, we can’t live our lives without and can’t get anywhere else in the world, except at their store. 

But...what if there was no paper advertising?  What if, a rule could be passed in parliament that could reduce the amount of advertising that bombards our senses?  Could there be a time limit on what, how long, and to what amount our lives could be intruded upon by advertising?  Have you ever thought about it?

I have given this considerable thought over the years and feel we need to start somewhere; we need to start at the most serious of advertising that not only invades our homes every last day of the year, but depletes our planet of vital resources that are difficult to grow and replace – without which we would all shrivel up and die.
 
Yup – you might have guessed - the beloved letterbox drop, advertising.

​So...for the last two months, I have collected every last piece of advertising through my mailbox and the amount of unread, wasted paper is more than staggering.  It is mind-blowing! 

Photo - Sketa Oz - Are you kidding me?

From December 1st through until Sunday, January 31st 2015, exactly 455 pieces of advertising have entered my letterbox.  This is 28.43676581 pounds of advertising = 12.8987 kilograms of wasted paper.  Yup!  You read right!  I have counted every last piece, weighed and placed them all over my backyard and photographed them just to show you, the seriousness of this problem. ​

Photo - Sketa Oz - It couldn't be that bad - could it?

According to the Office of Economic and Statistical Research – www.qgso.qld.gov.au  Toowoomba Regional Council projections indicated that by 2016 (this year), “the expected population of the Toowoomba region would be between 175,503 and 185,039 persons”.  If we work out the mean value, it is a population of 180,271 persons – this equals around 69,335 occupied dwellings (180,271 divided by 2.6 persons per dwellings). ​​

Photo - Sketa Oz - Just another number!

Photo - Sketa Oz - How big is this problem?

Let me put this in perspective...

If every dwelling receives similar amounts of advertising in their letterbox over the December ~ January period, we are looking at 455 pieces x 69,335 dwellings = 31,547,425 pieces of letterbox advertising or 12.8987 kilograms x 69,335 dwellings = 894,331.3645 kilograms of paper.

​Now I know, not every dwelling will receive the letterbox drops.  So, let’s round-down the figures, to make them more manageable. Let’s use just 50,000 occupied dwellings, multiply that by 455 pieces and wallah!   22,750,000 pieces of junk mail or...12.8987 kgs x 50,000 dwellings = 644,935 kilograms of paper. 
                                                                           
Remember these figures are just for

                                                                                                     2 months! ​

Photo - Sketa Oz - Counting ain't easy...

If we do the maths for 1 year...
 22,750,000 pieces of junk mail (2 month figures)
             x 6
= 1,336,500,000 pieces of mail.  
OR
644,935 kilograms of paper (2 month figures)
       x 6
=3,869,610 kilograms of paper 
= 3869.61 metric tonnes of paper every year.  
​
​And that is only for 50,000 dwellings, based on the Toowoomba regions population figures!

Photo - Sketa Oz - The Sea of Advertising

Now if you ask me, that is an awful lot of paper and an awful lot of trees cut down for nothing, except pumping up someone’s letterbox. Receivers will flick through maybe 5% of what is delivered and then throw it into the closest bin!  And not always the recycle bin, either.
 So, how much would all that convert to - for Queensland or for that matter...Australia? 
 Could our problem be that bad? Well, it’s diabolical and our carbon foot print is humongous!  Given this wastage is only for letterbox drops, on a 2 month period, I can’t imagine what the figures would look like for the rest of the paper, we waste.
 
According to the cencusdata.abs.gov.au, Australian private dwellings for 2011 were 9,117,033.  Fortunately, I don’t have figures for 2016.  So let’s just crunch the numbers, based on 2011.
 
9,117,033 dwellings
      x 455 pieces
= 4,148,250,015
                  x 6
= 24,889,500,090 pieces of advertising per year.

Or...
 9,117,033 dwellings
x 12.8987 kilograms
=117,597,873.557
                  X 6
= 705,587,241.342 kilograms of paper

OR an unbelievable,
​ 
 705,587.241342 tonnes of paper!

Photo - Sketa Oz

So how many trees are needed to make this much paper?  According to conservatree.org it takes:

• 24 trees to make 1 tonne of uncoated virgin (non-recycled) printing and office paper
• 12 trees to make 1 tonne of 100% virgin (non-recycled) newsprint
• A “pallet” of copier paper weighs 1 tonne = 40 cartons (20 lbs sheet weight or 20#)
• Accordingly, it takes .6 of a tree to make 1 carton (10 reams) of 100% virgin copier paper  or 1 tree to make 16.67 reams of copy paper = 8,333.3 sheets
• 1 ream (500 sheets) uses 6% of a tree
• 15 trees to make 1 tonne of coated, higher-end virgin magazine paper
• And 7.68 trees to make 1 tonne of coated, lower-end virgin magazine paper (used for newsmagazines and most catalogues)

 Therefore to make 705,587.241 tonnes of paper for Australian letterbox drop advertising...
 705,587.241342 tonnes of paper
    X 7.68 trees,
      ?
We would need:
​
               5,418,910.013 trees

Photo - Sketa Oz

Again, that’s an awful lot of trees to be cut down for unread, wasted advertising and we are only talking about – JUNK MAIL!

It is hard to fathom or imagine how many trees are cut down for...needed publications.
So again...                        

WHAT IF...?
What if, parliament passed a bill to prevent firms from wastefully advertising? 
What if, businesses could only advertise once a week, using only 1 or 2 sheets of paper = 2~4 sides of A4 paper? 

Personally, I think this could work well - for every last person on the planet! Yet, being told by businesses who use junk mail to convince us, “you can save 5 cents by shopping with us, but we’ll have to chop down 5,418,910.0135 trees every year to tell you about it...

 I don’t think so!
​
 So, what if Australia?

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References:

1. Office of Economic and Statistical Research: http://www.qgso.qld.gov.au/products/reports/pop-housing-profiles-lga/pop-housing
2. Profile ID – Community Profile: http://profile.id.com.au/toowoomba/dwellings
3. Conservatree: http://www.conservatree.org/learn/EnviroIssues/TreeStats.shtml​

Check out the facts:

• http://www.thinkglobalgreen.org/deforestation.html
• People cut down 15 billion trees each year and the global tree count has fallen by 46% since the beginning of human civilization. http://time.com/4019277/trees-humans-deforestation/
• The global number of trees has fallen by approximately 46% since the start of human civilization. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v525/n7568/full/nature14967.html
• In 2007-8 Australians consumed 4,250,000 tonnes of paper

https://www.cleanup.org.au/PDF/au/cua_paperandcardboard_fact_sheet_final.pdf

• Only three trillion trees left on the planet...that’s 420 trees for every person on the planet

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-34134366

• Sumatra’s rainforest will disappear in 17 years http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/26/sumatra-borneo-deforestation-tigers-palm-oil

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