Here’s a complaint about the Siege of the Kohl’s Fliers in Park Slope from our well supplied Park Slope Parents email bag:
Every week, walking around in this neighborhood, I pass hundreds of bundles of fliers in the Kohl’s bag. It’s pretty appalling to me that as many of us are trying to cut down on our waste and consumption, that this fat pack of fliers goes out every week to every address like
clockwork. It’s literally truckloads of paper and plastic every week. I’ve called the distribution company several times asking them not to deliver to my house. I’ve called 311. I’ve called Kohl’s. I’ve called Newsday. And yet every week — there it is. The main publication in the bundle is the Newsday Marketeer, put out by the Star Community Publishing Group. Apparently they send out over 2.6 million of these things every week across the NYC and LI regions. WHAT THE #$@-? Is anyone else upset by this? Please register a complaint about this! Here’s a link to Bloomberg’s email. Please also call the distribution company and ask them to stop delivering to your address (or neighborhood!): 1-800-376-6222. If enough of us call, maybe they will listen. I realize I’m getting a little obsessed, but it just galls me to have so much waste repeatedly dumped into my front yard as I’m inside changing my lightbulbs and reusing my plastic bags…
The interesting thing about the Kohls Flier Fest is that the closest Kohl’s is kind of in Bath Beach on Bay Parkway and we’re wondering how many Slopers are making the trip, fliers or not. The Park Slope Civic Council has a full list of where one can pick up No Fliers signs that they created, which are quite popular around the Slope these days. Other neighborhoods have their own versions too.
9 responses so far ↓
1 Atomsiche // Jul 12, 2008 at 11:33 am
The other day I happened to be walking behind a Kohl’s flier pusher on my way to the subway. Hanging back a couple stoops, I pulled out each plastic bag as he stuck them in the iron grate, then dumped them in the trash bin on the corner. He definitely saw me, but couldn’t care less.
2 Eric // Jul 12, 2008 at 2:52 pm
Dumping them in a recycling bin would’ve been a better idea.
We got four of those on our stoop the other day, for a one-family home, and I bundled them all for recycling without looking at them, as I’ve done EVERY time I’ve ever gotten them. Thanks, Kohl’s. I’m sure the planet thanks you, too.
3 Janet // Jul 12, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Have you ever looked in the Kohl’s bags? Because the ones I get in Park Slope don’t even include a Kohl’s flyer. They do include the sale circulars for Key Food, Pathmark, Circuit City, sometimes the drug stores (CVS, Rite Aid, Duane Reade) and I, for one, appreciate the area-targeted information they contain. Generally I take one off someone’s stoop because my coop doesn’t let them sit around.
Atomsiche, if you’re so proud of yourself for helping humanity you could put the contents in paper recycling.
4 Anonymous // Jul 12, 2008 at 8:42 pm
Carroll Gardens is under siege by these bags. i call the small number on the bag and they won’t stop delivering them unless the caller OWNS the building. I thought unsolicited materials was against the law, now. i hate those flyers with a passion, but, the NO MENU/FLYER tag on my gate keeps them away..sometimes. What a waste of paper those things are.
5 anniep // Jul 12, 2008 at 10:37 pm
I live in an old industrial building in Gowanus, and the Kohl’s flyer guys are relentless. It’s not them- they all look like very hungry, working poor people. But I’m sick of it- I swear it’s at least three days a week.
6 Ted // Jul 13, 2008 at 7:44 am
They are all over Greenwood Heights as well. When I called 311, I was told that legislation was in the works but that there was nothing the city could do about it.
Then I called to complain to the distributor and was told that, because I live in a multi-dwelling building, they wouldn’t stop delievering. “What if other people want it?”
Of course no one want it. They just litter stoops and the street until someone has to pick it up and put it in the garbage.
What angers me even more is that most of the time the NO FLYER signs are ignored.
7 It Depends // Jul 13, 2008 at 6:10 pm
I sympathize with the Red & Black cause, but I don’t like the zip-tied placards much more than the circulars.
8 Atomsiche // Jul 13, 2008 at 9:29 pm
I didn’t mean to imply that I was trying to help humanity or anything like that: was simply taking out my frustration at the store by un-delivering some of their illegal junk mail. If the city provided recycling bins, I would have put them there.
9 Gotham Gazette - The Wonkster » Blog Archive » End of the Week Wrap // Jul 18, 2008 at 4:26 pm
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