The
Honeyguide brochure for 2019 will drop on doormats soon. This year it will be
in an envelope rather than polythene wrap. The colourful covers will be hidden,
but the aim is straightforward – to avoid single use plastic.
I’ve used
the same local mailing house, Cavalier, for many years. I also meet my main
contact there from time to time on the youth football circuit, another reason
to stay loyal. Magazines from the National Trust and RSPB now come in a
see-through wrap made from potato starch, like the material used quite widely
for food waste bins, and these compost readily. Could the same, I asked, be arranged
for the Honeyguide mailshot?
They had
reservations. Starch wraps have short shelf-life. If there’s no demand, there
is soon a decomposing pile in the warehouse.
Secondly, will they be widely used? They cost
about 3p each compared with about 1p each for plastic. That’s a modest
difference in cost for a small mailshot – of about 1,000 – for Honeyguide.
Others may not think the same. Legislation or taxes are probably the answer –
think of the collapse in plastic bag use since they cost 5p each.
The upshot
was the mailing house agreed to get some in, but quite not soon enough for our
mailing. And yes, I did first ask many months ago. So we went with old-fashioned envelopes,
widely recyclable, as the other non-plastic option. Next year, we’ll see.
Car
sticker
Less
recyclable is a new product: a Honeyguide car sticker. It should have a long
life: it should peel off without leaving a mark and even be moved. These
haven’t been enclosed in the brochure mailing: I concluded that many might be
thrown away. Instead I plan to include them with booking confirmations in the
coming months.
The Honeyguide
car sticker is the same size and shape as car stickers for the National Trust,
RSPB, wildlife trusts etc, and looks good alongside them, I think. I hope you
agree and that they spark some conversations, for example in nature reserve car
parks.
With waste
minimisation still in mind, let me pose a question. Since the start of
Honeyguide – in the pre-internet era – the information package for holidays,
for enquiries or with booking confirmations, has included a previous holiday report,
where available. We admit to being proud of the reports: effort and TLC goes
into their production, and leaders certainly refer to them. But that shouldn’t
mean routines are cast in stone. Are holiday reports, in reality, better looked
at online? We could, for example, still post reports as a souvenir after a
holiday or on request, but with respect to future bookings is a previous report
a waste of paper? Answers on a recyclable postcard, or an email!
