Rabid: Environmentally friendly

When Rabid Reseller decided to join the Green Revolution it was the best thing we’d ever done. The cost of the green paint was well worth the increased traffic in the shop. The main problem was explaining to all the new customers that we actually sold environmentally friendly technology – not garden products. Or green paint. But the paint was only the visible surface of Rabid’s deep commitment to everything green and renewable.

There’s no point going into this half-baked – there’s a planet to be saved and it’s the only one we’ve got, despite those tickets to the space station we bought on eBay. So at the same time we also introduced compulsory recycling. That is, we won’t sell anyone a new computer unless they bring along an old one for recycling. Well, yes, a few astute shoppers did notice that we no longer offer trade-ins and that we weren’t actually offering money for the old PCs. But that’s not the point. We’re doing our best to keep the old clunkers out of landfill.

Oh alright, but that’s just being picky. Yes there’s now a Recycled Rabid Reseller shop next door to the main shop but how else did you expect us to get rid of all these old useless, er…pre-loved PCs? And, all the money raised from the sale of these recycled items goes towards renewable energy. Yes indeed, we’re using the money to pay the electricity bill. But we ticked the box on the bill which said “rip me off another 20 percent and pretend it’s for green electrons” so you can’t accuse us of not getting with the program.

And we’re also doing our bit to reduce our carbon footprint in other ways, several of which are worth noting. We won’t bother with the nephew’s suggestion that we just wear one size smaller shoes. That just hurt. But the carbon dependency around here has been reduced starting with turning off two out of every three fluorescent lights. Now this is an idea we really wished we’d thought of much sooner. It’s really hard to spot the blemishes on “shop-soiled” items when you’re operating out of a cave. And the mushrooms which have sprouted are a tasty lunchtime treat.

We’ve also converted the Rabid Reseller delivery van to run on bio-diesel. Well, it’s actually running on used chip fat from the greasy spoon next door, but hey, he was just tipping it down the sink before we offered to buy it to power the van. Well, we’re using “buy” in a strictly pejorative sense here because there’s no money changing hands. The simple mention of the ‘environment’ and the ‘constabulary’ in the same sentence caused him to make an instantaneous gratuitous offer of an endless supply of “bio-diesel”.

You see how thinking globally but acting locally can really make a difference? And we’ve also saved on phone charges since we no longer have to call the driver to find out if he’s on his way back to the store. No, all we do now is wait until it smells as though somebody forgot to turn off the chip fryer and we know he’s close. When it smells like the burgers are done we know he’s in the loading dock, and when the Chiko rolls smell ready he’s got the back door open.

We didn’t stop with the delivery van either – we’ve downsized the gas-guzzling sales vehicles at the same time. Well, actually we just sold them. OK, we gave them away – to the scrap metal bloke. It seems there’s not much call these days for candy-pink V8-powered SUVs with “R U Rabid” painted on the sides. People just don’t place any value on things these days and nostalgia is no longer what it used to be either.

Gotta go! Carbon to trade!

environmentally finance friendly rabid