Cease throwing cash off the again of a prepare

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Whereas performing some last-minute Christmas buying 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 worth.

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

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In my case, past merely being happy that I lastly thought to make use of the remaining card steadiness — a bit beneath $10 — was the belief that it simply as simply may have stayed in my pockets without end, or no less than till my children had been pressured to take care of it when closing out my property.

This yr 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 yr by an identical however extra widespread rollout by now-defunct Blockbuster Video.

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

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

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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, fuel stations and a lot extra. You may even buy present playing cards from Molly Maid dwelling cleaners, a thoughtfully form — if additionally considerably non-passively judgmental — current.

What retains me fascinated with them, although, isn’t their ubiquity, however relatively the waste of the entire unused ones.

Canadian retail adviser Doug Stephens this yr estimated that present card income on this nation was about $3.5 billion, and rising at an annual fee of between 5 and eight per cent. That’s a whole lot of plastic, which, to not rain on everybody’s Santa Claus parade, raises the difficulty of their ecological impact.

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 160 tonnes of plastic. That 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.

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Reward playing cards accumulating 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 presently on the market on eBay for a fraction of their authentic face worth (plus transport). They’re barely invaluable as collectors’ objects.

So use ’em if you happen to bought ’em, or no less than 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 a whole lot of tens of millions of {dollars} every year once we might be enhancing individuals’s lives as a substitute.

bdeachman@postmedia.com

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