Suggestions for finding inserts.

[westcoastblondie]

I know that people do recycling walks and such and do really well with that but I also know that recycling systems vary city to city and some people don't have the opportunity. Well the past two weekends I've done AMAZINGLY well with finding inserts with little to no effort so I thought I'd share what I did in hopes it might help someone else out.

1 - Restaurants. A lot restaurants have papers for their customers to read when they coming in for morning coffee or brunch and to just browse through throughout the day. Last weekend when I went to a restaurant close to my house towards the end of the night, I asked them if I could have the flyers out of their papers and they said "Absolutely, no problem at all they're just going to go into recycling anyway!" And I managed to get 13 sets of brandsaver, smartsource and redplum. I'm planning on going back to ask them tonight. A friend of mine went to another restaurant in our area and they gave her 18 sets of the three inserts!

2 - Gas Stations. A friend of mine works at a gas station near my house and she mentioned to me that all of the papers that are not sold by the end of the day are just recycled, flyers included. She told me that I should ask her boss if I could have them. So my friend(a different friend) and I went there at 8:45 last weekend (because they closed at 9:00pm) and asked the boss if we could have the flyers out of the papers before they were recycled. She said absolutely and gave them all to us and told us that anytime they come out we can feel welcome to come back and grab them. Of course I'm sure this will vary depending on if you're in a big city or not and your gas station sells a lot of papers, but it's worth a shot... right?

3 - The grocery store. Last weekend my friend and I asked at the grocery store if anyone had left the flyers when they bought the paper and the girl pulled out a whole whack of them from underneath the customer service desk and gave them to us! Then she said that because they were closing soon we were welcome to go through the papers and grab the rest if we would like them!

Like other people on here have been saying, it can't hurt to ask right? I have three friends that use coupons along with myself and between the two of us collecting last weekend (when the other two couldn't) we split them evenly amongst us and managed to get fifteen copies of each one of the inserts for each of our houses. If you are unable to do recycling walks (like we are in our town) and you are looking to find more inserts, ask around. You never know who will say yes!

p.s. I hope this is in the right place! I always consider flyers/inserts the same thing so hopefully I didn't put this in the wrong place.

[barginbin-barbie]

I always find a lot where I get my car service. My friend and I do recycle walks in her area, mine and we also head out at lunch from work. How do you know that it is not allowed in a certain area. It would be very upsetting to call our boss and say we are not coming back from lunch because we got arrested for looking for coupons

[westcoastblondie]

Oooh, I didn't mean that recycling walks aren't allowed in my town, I just meant that it's not possible!

See, we don't have curbside recycling, or well any form of recycling for the masses. If people want to recycle we have to take our recycling to these big like twenty foot tall containers (well they look like the containers that come off of ships used to ship goods from other countries like asia and such) with only small windows in them that are about five feet off the ground. The holes in them are so small that you have to unfold and sort of squish things like pizza boxes just so they'll fit through.

So yeah, looking for anything in the recycling in my town is just not possible. Once it's hit the recycling bins it's gone forever.

It's so completely bad for the environment too because I can't even imagine how many people are too lazy to drive to these designated spots where the recycling containers are to recycle their cardboard boxes and such and it probably all gets thrown into the garbage in my town.

[torontogal12]

Great suggestions. Anyone that sells newspapers can get refunds from the publisher by cutting off the top part with the date and then giving it back. So they don't need the entire paper, just that one part, and the rest they will likely throw away outside their store so it can't hurt to ask.

BTW I don't think I've ever seen a gas station closed!

I once also found an insert at the car dealership when we were getting the oil changed. I imagine food courts or coffee shops would be good places too (except Starbucks where you gotta pay for that paper!)

[greencanuck]

I asked about spare newspapers or flyers at about 7 places that sell them.
The newspaper distribution company requires newspaper retailers to sign a contract that says that they are not allowed to give out any part of the paper to couponers.
I inquired in several places in Goderich and London, Ontario.

[westcoastblondie]

I asked about spare newspapers or flyers at about 7 places that sell them.
The newspaper distribution company requires newspaper retailers to sign a contract that says that they are not allowed to give out any part of the paper to couponers.
I inquired in several places in Goderich and London, Ontario.

That's really wild that they have rules about that stuff! Maybe they've had issues or something. They definitely don't have rules like that in my little town! I'm sorry that you struck out like that!


And foodcourts would probably also be a great place to look for inserts for people searching. Whenever I make my way into the big cities I always see papers around the mall food courts that people just read and leave.

[greencanuck]

I did not mean to disrespect your excellent suggestions or efforts to help other people obtain flyers and coupons.
My comment was to show why one of those suggestions may not work in some places.

[shellylynn39]

I was wondering what day people find is the best day to try to find inserts ? I know some come out this weekend, but was wondering if you go on Monday and find them?