I’m continually amazed that biotech companies still send me stuff, generally badly addressed and wildly inappropriate given that I work at a computer, not the lab bench.   Normally these are summarily dispatched to either the bin, or the recycling bin depending on the amount of plastic in them.

What do I do with Invitrogens latest mailing though?  It is, I kid you not, a pine cone, in a plastic bag.  The pine cone has a little tag on it with a URL that redirects to a page saying that for each purchase I make, they will donate some money to the Woodland Trust.

Quite why I needed a postcard, plastic bag, pine cone, elastic band and printed card to tell me this rather than for instance AN EMAIL, I don’t know.  It just doesn’t seem very green, even if the plastic is photodegradable and the inner card ‘recyclable’ rather than ‘recycled’.

I am quite tempted to plant the pine cone though…