Recycling excess copies of The Examiner

Posted on: Wed, 06/27/2007 - 22:52 By: Tom Swiss

Sick and tired of picking up litter dumped on my lawn by The Examiner's carriers, I fired this off. I'm sending hardcopy in the mail tomorrow. Yes, I do intend to follow up and bill them if they keep dumping papers, and if they don't pay, I'll consider turning it over to a collection agency.

Feel free to copy the idea and make similar arrangements with these littering bastards.

Tom Swiss
2119 Arlonne Drive
Baltimore, MD 21228
410-455-5325
Fax: 443-927-9320
tms@infamous.net

Michael Barnum, Vice President, Circulation
Baltimore Newspaper Publishing Company, LLC
400 E. Pratt St.
Baltimore, MD 21202
mbarnum@baltimoreexaminer.com

Jun 27, 2007

Dear Mr. Barnum,

Since repeated telephone calls to the circulation office of The Examiner have failed to stop your carriers from littering my lawn and driveway with newspapers, I can only assume that you have great difficulty in disposing of your excess papers.

Rather than pressing criminal charges for littering against your company, I propose a profitable and ecologically helpful solution: I am willing to provide you with a recycling service for excess papers. My rate is $90 per pound of papers, one pound minimum for any day you choose to use my service.

Any copies of The Examiner left at or in front of my house (2119 Arlonne Drive, Catonsville MD, 21228) after July 4, 2007, will be taken as acceptance by Baltimore Newspaper Publishing Company, LLC, of these terms and as a request for the service described above. Bills for the service will be sent to you at this address.

If you choose not to make use of this service, then you merely need to stop littering my lawn and driveway with newspapers.

Very truly yours,

Tom Swiss

Alessandro Machi (not verified)

Sun, 09/02/2007 - 19:17

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Are you against newspapers in general? I'm not sure we would be better off without newspapers entirely because the internet can be so revisionistic, plus, the internet ultimately is a constant drain of electricity that just grows by the day.

However, I think it would be interesting if newspapers could be "forced" to not pack their classifieds into each and every edition.

In all the years I have read newspapers I doubt if I have ever looked at the classifieds more than 10 times. I've purchased a fuel efficient car two times in the past 25 years, both were used, both are still running on their original engines, so I have had no need to ever look at all of the car ads for all of these years. (did you know it takes 50,000 pounds of materials to make a 3000 pound car!). All the real estate ads in my newspaper have also been unnecessary. It's sad that I don't have a choice and I MUST have the additional clutter and paper wasting that the classifieds, car ads, and real estate ads bring when I have no desire to read them.

Yes, I'd be willing to pay more for a much more streamlined newspaper, but could the delivery person keep the two styles of newspapers straight?

Tom Swiss

Fri, 12/07/2007 - 21:03

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Yes, so far I have not received any more junk papers on my lawn.

Tom Swiss - proprietor, unreasonable.org

Wagnerism (not verified)

Sun, 12/09/2007 - 08:27

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I got them to stop for a while. My first guess is that the driver employees turn over often and don't keep notes. I would also expect that someone making a buck by driving around delivering these newspapers wouldn't be the most thorough and careful for their job.

I'll use your threat. I'll also follow through with my own.

I threatened that I would contact one of their advertisers every time I get one of their newspapers. I will tell them about how the "impressive circulation" of this "newspaper" is based on littering and dumping them - not on subscribers.

My first follow through comes today. I'll start with the front page and CC the advertisement department.