Photo courtesy of GregoryH at Flickr.com.
While unwanted postal mail can be annoying, it might not seem like a serious environmental issue until you consider the enormous quantities of resources and energy it uses up every year. For example, retailers send out about 17 billion catalogs a year — and most are printed on virgin, unrecycled paper.
If you want to help rein in the waste, try a few simple steps like shopping online more, canceling unwanted paper catalogs, and getting your name off the junk mail lists. CatalogChoice lets you specify which paper catalog lists you’d like your name removed from.
Similarly, OptOut allows you to cut off all pre-approved credit card applications. You can register with the National Do Not Mail List to have your name removed from ALL standard direct mailing lists.
Photo courtesy of the_real_berserker2 at Flickr.com.
{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }
I happen to be one of the owners of MyJunkTree and as a new company I search the web to see if we are getting any visibility out there and I post on relevant blogs.
We launched the company because we were tired of all the junk mail we were receiving and we personally did not want to bounce all over the web to contact all the different companies to stop it all. First and foremost we wanted to let people choose what they wanted to let come to their home knowing that some people really do like some of the coupons and catalogs. So our clients choose what they want stopped.
We also had to provide a service that is different than the other services out there, so here is what we offer:
1. We have a database of over 1300 catalogs that you can choose to stop.
2. We have over a 2000 charities/Non-Profits that you can stop solicitations from.
3. Stop the delivery of the national phone directories.
4. Stop the delivery of the weekly coupons.
5. Stop the general credit card offers as well as the ones from your own major bank.
6. Stop the miscellaneous junk mail from the data brokers.
7. You can register on the National Do Not Call Registry from the website.
8. You can order your no strings attached free annual credit report right from the website.
9. We plant trees with every new membership.
And, yes we are a paid service and yes you can do everything that we do for free, if you want to do all the research and spend the time contacting the companies yourself it can easily be done. We have just done all of the legwork for our clients and feel there is value in the service we provide.