Deachman: Give your present playing cards to somebody in want

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Whereas performing some last-minute Christmas e-book procuring final weekend, I found in my pockets a long-forgotten and well-worn Indigo present card. I had no thought when or how I got here by it, or if it nonetheless had any remaining worth.

They’re humorous issues, these present playing cards, falling someplace between selecting a present that somebody REALLY needs and easily giving them money, the latter an train that, unusually, particularly given the bottomless commercialization of Christmas, remains to be thought of gauche besides within the case of kids.

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In my case, past merely being happy that I lastly thought to make use of the remaining card stability — a little bit underneath $10 — was the belief that it simply as simply may have stayed in my pockets without end, or at the least till my children had been compelled to take care of it when closing out my property.

This 12 months marks the thirtieth season of giving and receiving present playing cards, with U.S. luxurious retailer Neiman Marcus reportedly kicking all of it off with their introduction in 1994, adopted the subsequent 12 months by the same however extra widespread rollout by now-defunct Blockbuster Video.

Precisely how most of the pervasive playing cards are floating round is anybody’s guess, however there’s actually no scarcity. And lots of of them are in all probability not dissimilar to those that spent years in my pockets, unnoticed, ignored and never doing anybody any good.

In keeping with the 2023 Retail Council of Canada/Leger vacation procuring survey of two,500 Canadians, performed on-line final summer time, 45 per cent of customers anticipated to purchase present playing cards over the Christmas holidays, every planning to spend about 16 per cent of their gift-giving finances on the issues.

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It’s tough to think about a services or products that may’t be given by way of a present card, from grocery retailer chains to eating places to fuel stations and a lot extra. You possibly can even buy present playing cards from Molly Maid house cleaners, a thoughtfully type if additionally considerably non-passively judgmental current.

What retains me excited about them, although, isn’t their ubiquity, however moderately the waste of all of the unused ones.

Canadian retail advisor Doug Stephens this 12 months estimated that present card income on this nation was about $3.5 billion, and rising at an annual price of between 5 and eight per cent. That’s quite a lot of plastic, which, to not rain on everybody’s Santa Claus parade, raises the problem of their ecological influence.

Assuming that my kitchen scale and math pencil are correct, if each Canadian had only one plastic present card of their pockets, that will quantity to about 350,000 kilos, or near 160 tonnes, of plastic. Which will barely be a drop in comparison with the Nice Pacific rubbish patch, say, but it surely’s nonetheless nothing to brag about.

Stephens estimates that between 10 and 20 per cent of present playing cards are by no means redeemed — a boon to the retailers promoting them, for certain, however not a lot to anybody else. It’s, to paraphrase a favorite Tom Waits lyric, like throwing cash off the again of a prepare. Reward playing cards gathering mud in wallets, workplace desks and kitchen cabinets solely lose their worth to inflation — or worse, if the corporate promoting them goes out of enterprise. Witness the nugatory 20-year-old Blockbuster present playing cards at the moment on the market on eBay for a fraction of their authentic face worth (plus transport). They’re barely precious as collectors’ gadgets.

So use ‘em in case you received ‘em, or at the least give them to somebody who will — a meals financial institution or shelter, for instance, or any group that serves the neighborhood. We’re throwing away tons of of tens of millions of {dollars} every year, once we could possibly be bettering individuals’s lives as an alternative.

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