When purchasing a Zero-Waste Weekly Planner for oneself, this is an unnecessary slip of thick cardstock printed with information you already know. It would be silly to purchase it.

On the other hand, if you are giving the planner as a gift, it is a useful bit of gift wrap that explains to the recipient what the product and our company are all about.

Why it is not “free"

“Free” is marketing sleight of hand - Costs are always buried somewhere, and customers always pay.

Aside from the dubious psychology of tricking people into believing they are getting something for free, is that the concept of “free” erases value, and increases waste.

Example: Packets of Red Pepper Flakes that are “Free” when you order a pizza.

The red peppers were grown, harvested, transported, dried, processed, packaged, then shipped to a distributor who delivers to the pizza place, so that fistfuls can be thoughtlessly tossed in for “free" with every order.

The majority of these plastic-lined packets are thrown “away”, locking bazillions of these little natural fire-seeds in permanent toxic landfills for the rest of time.

If hot pepper packets were optional AND customers were charged for them, it would eliminate an offensive amount of entirely unnecessary waste.

Charge a quarter per packet and see how many people actually want them.

This applies to a long list of dumb things that are “free”: straws, cups, to-go cutlery, napkins, lids, cup sleeves, ketchup packets, samples...

At any rate, It costs money for us to have these recycled paper bands locally printed, trimmed, scored, shipped, and ultimately affixed (by our small staff) around the planner. If we automatically included them, no one would question it, and we would have to raise the price to cover those costs, so they could be immediately removed and tossed upon receipt.

We're offering customers the choice, and pushing to normalize consideration and conversation around the superfluous things that are otherwise easy to overlook.