The Cross-Sound Ferry is a service which offers transit via ferry across the Long Island Sound between Orient Point, New York, and New London, Connecticut. This service allows you to either way onto the ferry for a fee of about fifteen dollars (one-way) or to bring your vehicle on-board for about forty-six dollars (one-way). I have used this service on average twice a month for the past three and a half years, as I reside on Long Island and I attend a university in Rhode Island. On a number of occasions, I have received promotional specials from the Cross-Sound Ferry Service via email which offer a discounted fare of sixty dollars round-trip for a car and up to six passengers, as long as the trip originates from the Long Island side.
This may very well be an offer to encourage Long Islanders to vacation in New England for the weekend, as the promotional discount is often accompanied by hotel and attraction coupons located in Connecticut. However, arguably, Connecticut is no more a vacation destination for individuals and families alike than Long Island.
As a student hailing from the east end of Long Island attending a Rhode Island university, this offer is completely useless to me. During the academic year, nine of twelve months, I am not looking to purchase round-trip ferry tickets from Long Island to New England (then back to Long Island), because I need to be in New England to attend school. However, on a number of occasions (various weekends throughout the semester, holidays, etc.), I am looking to purchase round-trip ferry tickets originating from the New London side. The Cross-Sound Ferry Service should offer a discouont to passengers traveling from New London to Orient Point as often as it offers a discount to passengers traveling in the reverse direction, from Orient Point to New London.
Offering the same discounts to passengers traveling in either direction is a matter of fairness. If up to six individuals per a vehicle can travel from the Orient Point ferry terminal to the New London ferry terminal for sixty dollars, round-trip, it is only fair for passengers traveling from the New London ferry terminal to the Orient Point ferry terminal to have the same discount opportunity.
In addition to fairness, offering equal discounts is particularly important to students. I know I am not the only student regularly using this service to get from Long Island to New England. There are dozens of students attending universities in the New England area who are from Long Island. The ferry is a fast and convenient option of getting from Point A to Point B, which saves money on gas and mileage on your vehicle. I would imagine more students taking advantage of this resource if it did not cost upwards of ninety dllars for a round-trip with a vehicle.
Furthermore, offering the same discounts to passengers traveling in either direction is especially effective in competition with other transportation options. Amtrak offers a student discount and even airlines offer "frequent flyer miles." It is wise to reward those who use one mode of transportation regularly, as it ensures a loyalty between passenger and carrier.
To be fair, ferry owner, Stanley Mickus claims he is willing to offer a special discount to students traveling in either direction, however, there is still more to be done by way of offering the same discount to all travelers. If enough Cross-Sound Ferry passengers articulate their interest in equal and fair discount opportunities to Stanley Mickus, we could all save a little money.
Sunday, January 25, 2009
Saturday, January 24, 2009
COACH: Excess Packaging & Our Forests, Our Wildlife, Our Air, & Our Future
I once visited a Coach location in my local mall to purchase my sister a gift-card. (I personally don't see the allure in Coach products; it's just a brand name, like anything else. There is nothing special or original about a Coach purse.) The sales associate helping me (just doin' her job, no doubt) placed my gift-card in an envelope (alright, normal); placed the envelope in a gift box; secured the box with a ribbon; placed this ridiculous little package in a gift-bag, and handed it to me. It was one of the most absurd things I have ever seen.
Excess packaging. This is a popular trend and radical problem which overwhelms our landfills and depletes our forests more than the average consumer cares to know.
What the average consumer doesn't know is that the Southern United States is the world's largest paper-producing region. Millions of acres of Southern forests are clear-cut annually to go to the Southern mills which support our country's paper industry. These diverse forests have been converted to crop-like rows of trees in order to cultivate the trees to meet our country's paper demand, which ushers in the use of toxic fertilizers and herbicides. Deforestation decreases air quality; contributes to global warming; and robs wildlife of their habitat, destroying our natural ecosystems.
Furthermore, each person in the U.S. generates approximately 300 pounds of packaging waste annually, and 32% of domestic waste is comprised of packaging materials alone. Not only does our country have an issue with producing wasteful amounts of paper products, but also does not dispose of it sustainably. All of these paper products end up in landfills.
Paper is the most commonly used packaging material (34%) with plastic following closely behind (30%). Currently, 25% of the 2.4 million hectares of trees cut down from Southern forests become packaging. In 2004, more than half of all of the trees that were cut down, chipped up, and processed into pulp became the packaging for other products, not products themselves. This is the reality of a culture addicted to excess which has developed a lifestyle that only feed and perpetuates that habit.
There are multiple reasons why the packaging industry uses so much material, which can be boiled down to either performance or presentation. Performance includes reasons that qualify as safety, health, and/or protection purposes. Presentation is solely aesthetics. How good does it look? How is it branded by our company? How quick will it sell? How marketable is this product? Coach falls here on the spectrum. Nothing about the performance, safety, and health of a plastic gift-card will be jeopardized from slipping it into a single envelope and handing it to the customer. By the way, Coach isn't the only national company which continually wastes packaging materials for reasons that seem superficial and trivial by nature. Try most fast food restaurants, supermarkets, make-up and cosmetic lines, Apple... and the list goes on.
Meanwhile, as our country does next nothing and the consumer remains clueless... our forests are turning into tree plantations which cannot possibly support natural animal and plant life and the scarcity of trees convert less and less carbon monoxide in our air to oxygen.
Excess packaging. This is a popular trend and radical problem which overwhelms our landfills and depletes our forests more than the average consumer cares to know.
What the average consumer doesn't know is that the Southern United States is the world's largest paper-producing region. Millions of acres of Southern forests are clear-cut annually to go to the Southern mills which support our country's paper industry. These diverse forests have been converted to crop-like rows of trees in order to cultivate the trees to meet our country's paper demand, which ushers in the use of toxic fertilizers and herbicides. Deforestation decreases air quality; contributes to global warming; and robs wildlife of their habitat, destroying our natural ecosystems.
Furthermore, each person in the U.S. generates approximately 300 pounds of packaging waste annually, and 32% of domestic waste is comprised of packaging materials alone. Not only does our country have an issue with producing wasteful amounts of paper products, but also does not dispose of it sustainably. All of these paper products end up in landfills.
Paper is the most commonly used packaging material (34%) with plastic following closely behind (30%). Currently, 25% of the 2.4 million hectares of trees cut down from Southern forests become packaging. In 2004, more than half of all of the trees that were cut down, chipped up, and processed into pulp became the packaging for other products, not products themselves. This is the reality of a culture addicted to excess which has developed a lifestyle that only feed and perpetuates that habit.
There are multiple reasons why the packaging industry uses so much material, which can be boiled down to either performance or presentation. Performance includes reasons that qualify as safety, health, and/or protection purposes. Presentation is solely aesthetics. How good does it look? How is it branded by our company? How quick will it sell? How marketable is this product? Coach falls here on the spectrum. Nothing about the performance, safety, and health of a plastic gift-card will be jeopardized from slipping it into a single envelope and handing it to the customer. By the way, Coach isn't the only national company which continually wastes packaging materials for reasons that seem superficial and trivial by nature. Try most fast food restaurants, supermarkets, make-up and cosmetic lines, Apple... and the list goes on.
Meanwhile, as our country does next nothing and the consumer remains clueless... our forests are turning into tree plantations which cannot possibly support natural animal and plant life and the scarcity of trees convert less and less carbon monoxide in our air to oxygen.
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