Saturday, March 26, 2011

Cheaper than newspaper ads, I guess

You can tell it is spring in New England when your yard gets pelted with these. They are advertisements for landscaping companies. The proprietors drive through the neighborhoods tossing out plastic bags weighted down by pieces of pea gravel.

These seem to be about as effective as hospital advertising -- which is to say, not very -- if we are to judge from the fact that most of them lie untouched for weeks.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

I used to walk our dog in the woods with a creek that drained our former neighborhood. It makes an environmentalist out of you - those flyers and even complete newspapers flow down there in rainstorms and clog up the creeks. It's really gross. Pick 'em up, people!

nonlocal

Paul Levy said...

Right! I have now collected enough of these as I take walks that I have enough gravel to pave a new driveway....

Anonymous said...

I want to get my hands on the marketers that sold that space or that concept and make them eat all the ones you've picked up. What they are selling is fraud pure and simple. 44% of direct meail goes into the a landfill unopened. You guys are clearly picking up the ohter 56%. They are spending $1 to get $.25 .. if they personally knocked on the doors of the unkempt lawns, they'd probalby reduce their carbon footprint.

Anonymous said...

I went to my mailbox today to find a landscaper's magnet on the outside. It's good news for him that my mailbox is metal! I don't appreciate the magnet because now I have to discard it. At least the paper ads can be recycled; the magnets cannot. I live in a community with no town trash pickup. I am VERY aware of how much I recycle or throw away because I have to cart it all to the transfer station - maybe I should hire this landscaper to carry my trash??

Leigh Hamby said...

We have these in the south too! I think the companies should be charged with littering. I have called one of our local ones previously and insisted they come and pick it back up and remove it. My wife was too embarassed and tossed it out before I could cause a ruckus