The Coles Myer + other partners loyalty program 'flybuys' was recently re-birthed somehow issuing brand new cards and collecting updated information. According to the informational video on the Flybuys website and other promo videos flybuys have been sent out to 16 million houses.
I am a member of this system simply because I can earn some gift cards every so often for doing my regular shopping.
Anyhow I received my flybuys activation package that included the envelope, an activation form, a little presentation sleeve that housed the new plastic cards, a guide booklet and a piece of associated advertising.
I decided to figured out how many resources were involved in this mass scale send out. The total amount of paper weighed 47 grams - Multiply this by 16 million and that totals 752,000Kg or 752 ton. That is a lot of paper/card.
Not to mention the computer time and printing works with their demand on electricity and inks/dyes. Then there was distribution via the postal service and the fuel they use. Finally the time it took of someone's life to deliver the mail.
Worth it? How should the delivery be different?
I'm not convinced this roll-out was such a good idea...aren't we headed in in the direction of using our 'smart' phones/devices to minimize the amount of cards people handle?
Interesting post man although I don't understand the intricate details of it. I think it's sad to see people losing the jobs of handing cards out but it really does save the environment so I do consider this kind of thing to be a positive step forwards.
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