I am exasperated by the amount of unwanted junk mail that finds its way into my mailbox on a daily basis. It’s a shameful waste of our precious resources. Did you know that over 51 million tons of greenhouse gases are emitted from the junk mail that we get every year – that’s equivalent to 10 million cars! Forests are destroyed so that we can receive a mail box full of paper that goes straight into the trash can. 34% of Americans don’t even have curbside recycling either. So what can we do to help this ridiculous situation? I love the website CatalogChoice because I have been getting a lot of bizarre and totally unrequested catalogs over the past few months. All you have to do is log in, type in the catalog/s that you no longer wish to receive and free-of-charge, they’ll do the rest. So if you have a spare 3 minutes today – get rid of those catalogs now!
Better to receive offers and coupons the paperless way – speaking of which, have you checked out our new exclusive coupon page. We will be bringing you exclusive Gorgeously Green Offers bi-monthly with an array of fantastic G.G. approved products that you can get for less.
I also hate unwanted mail and a few months ago I registered online with http://www.dmachoice.org to reduce my pre-screen credit offers and get off mailing lists and prospect lists. my mailbox has been drastically emptied (as I for the most part also receive all statements and bills online). In fact, I am almost sad checking my empty mailbox all the time, but am glad to not be taking the time and energy to have to recycle or… don’t judge me…throwing the ads away! It was once of my first conscious steps to lighten my footprint!
I am a teacher, and we have a major problem with junk mail- especially catalogs- as well. We have an 8th grade T.A. call all of the 1-800 numbers on the catalogs and he asks them to take us off their mailing lists. We started doing this with just our program, and now are making calls for the entire Intermediate School! We’ve reduced our junk mail significantly already. Thanks for the link though, that will make things even easier!
Another great resource is greendimes.com. The company reduces 90% of your junk mail! That includes credit card applications, flyers, catalogs. There is a free option and then 2 options you can pay for. A cool thing about the Premium option is that they will plant 5 trees in your name. It’s like growing your own tiny forest, in exchange for all your junk mail. Greendimes has effectively stopped 2,385,523 catalogs and 11,187,862 pounds of junk mail. That’s a lot of paper! And its so easy.