Our daily lives are filled with things that seem unnecessary — direct mail, excessive packaging, piles of paper no one really needs. Yet many of these “wastes” continue because they serve some hidden purpose in business, psychology, or society itself. Sometimes what looks pointless from one angle may still have value from another.
When I return home, there is almost always a piece or two of direct mail waiting for me.
I can no longer remember where or when I became connected to the senders, but the mail keeps arriving year after year.
I will probably never buy anything from them, and sometimes I even feel the advertisements may continue arriving long after I am gone.
Of course, not all of them are completely meaningless, but still, it feels like an extraordinary amount of waste.
Years ago, when preparing materials for an academic meeting, I was surprised to learn how expensive printed booklets actually were.
Judging from those prices, these advertisements must also cost a considerable amount of money.
Naturally, some of the products being advertised are sold for dozens or hundreds of times more than the printing cost itself, so perhaps the expense is insignificant to the companies involved.
Even so, it is not free.
Ninety-nine percent of those direct mail advertisements are never used — never leading to any purchase — and are simply thrown away as waste paper.
Paper also accumulates quietly in my workplace.
We have been promoting a paperless system, and the speed of accumulation has certainly slowed, but somehow documents still pile up around me before I even notice.
At times, I feel it is not because I am untidy, but because unnecessary things keep arriving from elsewhere.
Eventually, they too become garbage.
Something may be necessary for someone, but if it has no use, it becomes waste.
Recently, a confectionery company announced that it would switch some product packaging to black-and-white printing because of concerns over shortages of printing materials.
But does colorful packaging really count as waste?
Are attractive colors designed to stimulate our desire to buy truly unnecessary?
Or do even seemingly useless things exist for some reason after all?
The line between waste and necessity may be more difficult to understand than it first appears.
Perhaps even waste exists because someone, somewhere, still believes it has value.
・・・
Vocabulary for Learners
- direct mail — ダイレクトメール
- accumulate — 蓄積する
- paperless system — ペーパーレス化
- confectionery company — 菓子メーカー
- stimulate desire — 欲求を刺激する
- meaningless — 無意味な
- significant — 重要な／かなりの
- waste paper — 古紙、紙ごみ
- line between A and B — AとBの境界線
- necessary / unnecessary — 必要な／不要な
