<story><title>IKEA to discontinue its annual catalog, ending a 70-year run</title><url>https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/ikea-catalog-to-be-discontinued</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>forgotmypw17</author><text>Well, that covers the paper, for the most part. Thanks for explaining that.&lt;p&gt;Now, let&amp;#x27;s talk about the other components:&lt;p&gt;the ink (petrochemicals, for the most part)&lt;p&gt;the production, transportation, and containers for the ink&lt;p&gt;the runoff into our biosphere from the ink production&lt;p&gt;the transportation of the paper to the printing facility&lt;p&gt;the binding (glue)&lt;p&gt;the transportation of the catalogs to the stores&lt;p&gt;the plastic wrap and other packaging for the catalogs&lt;p&gt;the labor put into it (perhaps those people could be paid to rest instead? probably better for everyone all-around)&lt;p&gt;Did I miss anything?&lt;p&gt;How many dead, displaced, or injured animals do you think that is per catalog? How many humans harmed by exposure to manufactured poison? How many gallons of diesel extracted, transported, refined, transported again, and burned? How many dozen pieces of trucks, trains, and container ships mined, produced, and worn down? Is it still better than viewing the same catalogs online on an already existing computer screen?&lt;p&gt;Every single artefact produced by our system has a similar footprint. It&amp;#x27;s not just money cost. And I think it&amp;#x27;s worth considering.</text></item><item><author>hef19898</author><text>There is a ton of misconceptions out there about paper. Not saying using less isn&amp;#x27;t a good thing, so.&lt;p&gt;Most paper uses a very decent amount of recycled paper, has ti actually. To the point the industry faced issues last Q1 when demand went down and there wasn&amp;#x27;t enough recycled paper on the market. Trees are grown explicitly for paper production, and are regrown in the same forests. Net forest losses are mainly due to farming, e.g. in the Amazon region. Energy wise, paper production offers great opportunities to balance the grid.&lt;p&gt;Most paper, at least in Europe, is actually recycled.&lt;p&gt;And electronics do have there issues as well. They consume raw earthes, are consumed as well, end up in land fills and also have quite extensive supply chains and CO2 foot prints. And they consume electricity, which has to produced. And we are nowhere near the necessary levels of renewables.&lt;p&gt;I do support getting rid of useless paper consumption, it just not as straight forward as it seems.</text></item><item><author>forgotmypw17</author><text>Good riddance, in my opinion. 40 million copies of a thick catalog with glossy pages means a couple shittons of not just trees but petroleum and petrochemicals for production, distribution, and disposal. Every year! And ten years ago, it was nearly 200. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;archive.is&amp;#x2F;rHAhG&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;archive.is&amp;#x2F;rHAhG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can you even imagine a stack of one million catalogs?&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s space, trees, plants, mammals, birds, insects, mushrooms, ... all being squeezed for a glossy catalog, most of which will get thumbed through once or twice and sent to the landfill to rot.&lt;p&gt;These catalogs do not biodegrade well, by the way, because they&amp;#x27;re not just paper.&lt;p&gt;I love paper books, and I enjoyed browsing this catalog just like many others in this thread, and yet I don&amp;#x27;t think I will miss this one. Hopefully, other thick glossy catalogs will follow suit.&lt;p&gt;Production of catalogs like this squeezes our biome, and if we don&amp;#x27;t turn back, it will pop, and we&amp;#x27;ll be left with only enough resources for a small fraction of us to survive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>lhorie</author><text>That&amp;#x27;s not really an argument against paper catalogs specifically, it looks more like an argument against consumerism in general.&lt;p&gt;But taken to the logical conclusion, that argument can look rather hypocritical, for example why is the discussion about paper vs electronic catalogs for buying furniture and not about why we even need beds and chairs to begin with, while people in japan are fine w&amp;#x2F; futons[0] and kotatsu[1]?&lt;p&gt;One can take the argument to extremes and argue that amazonian forests burning in Brazil are partly due to you and I existing and needing to eat and wanting to have kids who need to be fed.&lt;p&gt;It&amp;#x27;s clearly a slippery slope, and if one draws the moral line to make others bad, while conveniently claiming to be &amp;quot;kosher&amp;quot; themselves, that&amp;#x27;s not really a convincing line.&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Futon&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Futon&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Kotatsu&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Kotatsu&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>IKEA to discontinue its annual catalog, ending a 70-year run</title><url>https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/ikea-catalog-to-be-discontinued</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>forgotmypw17</author><text>Well, that covers the paper, for the most part. Thanks for explaining that.&lt;p&gt;Now, let&amp;#x27;s talk about the other components:&lt;p&gt;the ink (petrochemicals, for the most part)&lt;p&gt;the production, transportation, and containers for the ink&lt;p&gt;the runoff into our biosphere from the ink production&lt;p&gt;the transportation of the paper to the printing facility&lt;p&gt;the binding (glue)&lt;p&gt;the transportation of the catalogs to the stores&lt;p&gt;the plastic wrap and other packaging for the catalogs&lt;p&gt;the labor put into it (perhaps those people could be paid to rest instead? probably better for everyone all-around)&lt;p&gt;Did I miss anything?&lt;p&gt;How many dead, displaced, or injured animals do you think that is per catalog? How many humans harmed by exposure to manufactured poison? How many gallons of diesel extracted, transported, refined, transported again, and burned? How many dozen pieces of trucks, trains, and container ships mined, produced, and worn down? Is it still better than viewing the same catalogs online on an already existing computer screen?&lt;p&gt;Every single artefact produced by our system has a similar footprint. It&amp;#x27;s not just money cost. And I think it&amp;#x27;s worth considering.</text></item><item><author>hef19898</author><text>There is a ton of misconceptions out there about paper. Not saying using less isn&amp;#x27;t a good thing, so.&lt;p&gt;Most paper uses a very decent amount of recycled paper, has ti actually. To the point the industry faced issues last Q1 when demand went down and there wasn&amp;#x27;t enough recycled paper on the market. Trees are grown explicitly for paper production, and are regrown in the same forests. Net forest losses are mainly due to farming, e.g. in the Amazon region. Energy wise, paper production offers great opportunities to balance the grid.&lt;p&gt;Most paper, at least in Europe, is actually recycled.&lt;p&gt;And electronics do have there issues as well. They consume raw earthes, are consumed as well, end up in land fills and also have quite extensive supply chains and CO2 foot prints. And they consume electricity, which has to produced. And we are nowhere near the necessary levels of renewables.&lt;p&gt;I do support getting rid of useless paper consumption, it just not as straight forward as it seems.</text></item><item><author>forgotmypw17</author><text>Good riddance, in my opinion. 40 million copies of a thick catalog with glossy pages means a couple shittons of not just trees but petroleum and petrochemicals for production, distribution, and disposal. Every year! And ten years ago, it was nearly 200. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;archive.is&amp;#x2F;rHAhG&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;archive.is&amp;#x2F;rHAhG&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;Can you even imagine a stack of one million catalogs?&lt;p&gt;That&amp;#x27;s space, trees, plants, mammals, birds, insects, mushrooms, ... all being squeezed for a glossy catalog, most of which will get thumbed through once or twice and sent to the landfill to rot.&lt;p&gt;These catalogs do not biodegrade well, by the way, because they&amp;#x27;re not just paper.&lt;p&gt;I love paper books, and I enjoyed browsing this catalog just like many others in this thread, and yet I don&amp;#x27;t think I will miss this one. Hopefully, other thick glossy catalogs will follow suit.&lt;p&gt;Production of catalogs like this squeezes our biome, and if we don&amp;#x27;t turn back, it will pop, and we&amp;#x27;ll be left with only enough resources for a small fraction of us to survive.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>DanBC</author><text>&amp;gt; Did I miss anything?&lt;p&gt;You missed coatings, which can include minerals or plastics. &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Coated_paper&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Coated_paper&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>