One way to have a positive effect on your environment is to stop your junk mail.  The average adult in the US gets about forty pounds of junk mail every year, and about half of it ends up in the landfill before it’s ever opened.  Over a lifetime, you’ll get about a thousand pounds of mail you never wanted - a lot more paper than could be produced from a single tree.

Plus, the production of that paper has a large environmental impact from water waste, pollution, and heavy metals in the inks.  Even using recycled paper requires a lot of resources to be used to send us mail that we don’t want!  Some companies have pledged not to send catalogs to customers who don’t want them, but most don’t, leaving it up to the consumer to do something about the junk mail flood.  Here are some options to get rid of your junk mail.

The people at 41pounds.org say they can stop up to ninety-five percent of junk mail and unwanted catalogs.  They get in touch with catalog companies, direct marketers, and others, and get your name taken off distribution lists.  It’s not a free service unfortunately, with a fee of forty-one dollars for five years of service.  However, they’ll donate a third of your new subscription fee to your preferred organization, as long as it’s community or environmentally oriented.

Another organization, called Catalog Choice, has been endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation.  Register online and use the search function to find specific companies’ catalogs and tell them you don’t want them anymore.  This is a free service, which is great.  However, as much as ten weeks may be required to process the request, so don’t expect results right away.

Residents of other countries have less luck, though there are plenty of options available.  While there aren’t too many services that’ll help you stop your junk mail, just switching to a post office box from a letterbox can help cut down the junk.  You can also look up the distributors of the junk mail you’ve been getting and tell them to stop sending it.  In many countries, they are required by law to stop sending unsolicited mail after that.  You can also discontinue all paper catalogs with companies you regularly do business with.  That’ll remove a lot of the problem mail.

Junk mail is a real problem and the source of a lot of waste.  However, the companies responsible for it don’t make it easy to get rid of!  There are methods you can use, however.  Just take a little time to research, or deal with one of the companies listed above to help stop your junk mail from coming in.

Photo by: N M -
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