Monday, December 20, 2010

KLEENEX

December 5th, 2010
Dear KLEENEX®,

I find it extremely difficult to believe that your introduction of KLEENEX® Hand Towels is in good faith, to ensure that people everywhere are benefiting from clean hands, and not more of a gimmick to cash in on people’s germ-phobias and jump in a sea of hand-towel profits.

I’ll have you know that people have been drying their hands for thousands of years, since the dawn of time, when the first hominid picked up a towel and dried its hands with it - this is an ancient tradition to be cherished! The motion of using a reusable cloth towel encompasses all cultures and draws together all people as part of the human race. When we dry our hands with cloth towels, we are re-enacting in the gesticulations of history’s greatest figures! Galileo Galilei, Joan of Arc, Issac Newton, Confusious, Lady GaGa and even Jesus dried his hands with a soft, clean, fuzzy, hand towel; just as I do.

Also, your environmental blahblahblah doesn’t quite convince me that this is truly a sustainable campaign. In one section of your FAQ (from your website), you state that “…in the U.S. alone, people dry their hands on cloth bathroom towels approximately 200 billion times per year,” not only implying that the average American conservatively only washes his or her hands twice a day, but also that you wish for all of those people to buy your KLEENEX® Hand Towels. … Well, I did the math!
  • One tree 75ft in height and 1ft in diameter will produce approximately 25,800 KLEENEX® Hand Towels.
  • There are approximately 885,139 hectares of trees left in the Amazon Rainforest.
  • Approximately 304 trees grow on each one of those hectares.
If people in the United States use 200 billion KLEENEX® Hand Towels a year, the Amazon Rainforest would be completed depleted in less than 35 years! Now of course, this number is a little outrageous, there is no possible way that you could gain the entire population of the United States as your market; so I recalculated with the population of the entire world! This time less than 2 years!

But wait! Can’t we recycle KLEENEX® Hand Towels? KLEENEX® can break through this disgusting waste of nature and help to create a better tomorrow! “We suggest you discard Kleenex® facial tissue in the trash.” Oh, never mind, I guess not.

But isn’t Kimberley Clark engaging within a sustainable business model?
“…we work hard to assure that the wood fiber we purchase comes only from well-managed forestlands or from recycled sources.” Wait, what? KLEENEX® Hand Towels are made from “Virgin fiber” and they can’t be recycled. So your sustainability campaign really says “we don’t really have one”.

Alright, so let me get this straight – KLEENEX® wants to cut down every tree on earth, touch people’s clean hands with them (hands that were freshly washed and sweetly smelling of lavender soap) and then throw them in landfills? “Yes!” (says imaginary KLEENEX® spokesperson). Oh, silly me, I thought dastardly villains with plans of world tree-cutting domination were things of science fiction.

Continuing on with this fantastically written letter, I noticed that you have made sumptuous references to the Centres for Disease Control in your arguments. “Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines for hand washing recommends hand drying with a single-use towel to help reduce the spread of germs.” To me, this seemed a little scammy, so I looked this up and it seems as though this has been taken out of context (which could also cause you some trouble if anyone were to take notice; they might just say that you’re lying). First of all, the only references to “sing-use towels” that I (and others) could find was within the hand washing standards for persons in health-care and related work-place settings. In their section “Stopping Germs at Home, Work and School,” there is absolutely no reference to single-use towels.

I also find your points from the “recent studies conducted by the CDC” very vague and inconclusive. The link you provide to the CDC is just for hand washing and even there it states, “Dry your hands using a clean towel or air dry” (oooh, that’s indemnifying!). It seems that you were just pulling quick facts that suit your argument. Let me comment on your points for your absolute reading pleasure:
  • “Even if a hand towel is not visibly dirty, it does not mean it is clean.”
So, then it doesn’t also mean it’s dirty either. What are you trying to say? How about this? “Even if KLEENEX® hand towels are not visibly dirty, it does not mean they are clean.” That statement is also true. Actually, that statement will be true in every single situation ever! “Even if your grandmother is not visibly dirty, it does not mean that she is clean.” Yup, looks like you’ve got a lot of questions to ask now. 
  • “Regular washing of bathroom hand towels does not ensure clean hands.”
Well, not washing at all ensures dirty hands, so what are you saying? I also wash my clothes, bed sheets and underwear in the same manner as my hand towels. Are you going to come out with one-time use KLEENEX® Underwear? And if so, I hope that they come in plaid, please forward this message on to your KLEENEX® Underwear design team.
  • “One-time use towels have been shown to be more hygienic.”
More hygienic than…a dirty towel? Ok sure, but what are the figures? Shown to be 0.01% more hygienic? But, what if I spill juice all over the KLEENEX® Hand Towels box in my car on the way home? Can I then wash them? Are they still more hygienic? Am I being too ridiculous? (Yes!) By giving no information, you’re assuming that the people who really want to read this stuff are basically morons and will not ask any further questions.  You’re expecting me to say “Oh, ‘one-time use towels are more hygienic than hand towels’ sounds like a fair statement to me, no problem here!” In fact, I did the opposite; I went and did some research and found out that there are a lot of other people also upset about this issue and that there really are zero benefits to your hand towels.
  • “Hand drying with disposable towels can help prevent the spread of germs.”
Surprisingly, I see the logic in this.    

Finally, I have also come up with a list of cheaper, alternative solutions to using KLEENEX® Hand Towels. You are free to take these suggestions down and market them for a 45% cut.
  • Waving my hands in the air until they are dry
  • Wiping my hands on my pants
  • Breathing heavily on my hands
  • Drying my hands with my hair and then the dog
  • Drying my hands on the couch
  • Drying my hands in the toaster
  • Drying my hands on the same KLEENEX® Hand Towel over and over again
In conclusion to my well-thought-out and researched points (which seems to be the opposite of what you did); KLEENEX® (Kimberley Clark, *cough* *cough*) is just a money-sucker of a company, loosing share in its facial tissue category and trying to invent innovative ways to still grab profits, while not caring about the well being of anything.

I wash my hands of this case….and then dry them with a cloth towel…which I will use over and over and over and over and over and over and over…….infinite

I expect a prompt and very specific response to my concerns, which I have stated.

Sincerely,

Terry Ibele
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December 21st, 2010
Dear Terry,

Thanks for your e-mail about KLEENEX® Hand Towels.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.  We recognize this product might not be for everyone, however, Kleenex® Hand Towels were launched in the United States to offer an additional hygienic option for our consumers.  All of our Kleenex brand products, including Kleenex® Hand Towels, are manufactured in accordance with Kimberly-Clark’s sustainability standards.

Thanks again for your interest.

Jean
Consumer Services, Kimberly-Clark Corp.
Lead the world in essentials for a better life.

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CONCLUSION: I don't think I'm even going to bother responding to that

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