See the video – A Message from the Alliance of Direct Mail Marketers

Laughs aside, this is a funny take on an actual real issue. Junk mail is not as funny when it comes to your door and truly does have an environmental impact. The Center for a New American Dream has some comprehensive facts and figures posted about junk mail, among them.

• More than 100 million trees’ worth of bulk mail accumulates in U.S. mail boxes each year – which is the equivalent of deforesting the entire Rocky Mountain National Park every four months. Gulp right?
• In 2001 alone, 5.4 million tons of catalogs and other direct mailings ended up in the U.S. municipal solid waste stream.
• Only 32% of all bulk mail was recycled in 2001.
• The country needs about 290,000 garbage trucks to haul all the unrecycled Junk mail to landfills and incinerators each year. That’s not just materials and energy used that’s also a load of emissions let go just to cart junk mail around. And that’s without factoring in mail trucks.

AND if you don’t give a care about the environment, maybe the costs will get you…

• It costs more than $370 million per year to collect and dispose of all the bulk mail that doesn’t get recycled. Consumers and government pay for this.
• Sponsors of California’s ‘Return to Sender’ bill estimate that California’s state and local governments spend $500,000 each year just to collect and dispose of AOL disks.

See all the junk mail facts – and when you look, keep in mind these are older stats, as the years go by junk mail actually has gotten worse, which seems funny considering we’re supposed to be the digital age.

HOW TO STOP JUNK MAIL COLD:

• Contact companies who send you junk mail. Tell them to take you off their list. If they don’t listen, gather up a nice big bundle and send it back to them – I know sort of passive and not a great use of emissions, but it feels good.
• Join Tonic Mailstopper.
• Register at Mail Preference Service.
• Try the Stop the Junk Mail Kit.
• You can also learn how to Cancel Your Random Catalogs.
• If you’d like to put the junk mail you already have to work, save it up for holiday wrap.

Does junk mail make you nuts or what?

[image via stock.xchng]

Post from: Blisstree

Funniest video ever – junk mail fun

Green Upgrader did a bit of research on what the post office will do should you actually use this “Return to Waster” stamp and they report:

for Bulk Mail (the things addressed to “RESIDENT”) if you stamp it and return it the Post Office just ends up recycling it, unless the marketer paid a little extra for a forwarding or return service which they do to make sure their lists are accurate and up to date. First class mail which a lot of credit card applications and other letters use will be returned to the sender.

Post from: Blisstree

Return to Waster

A few months ago, my co-worker Laura shared this great link with me: http://www.greendimes.com/. Complete the form and indicate the kind of mail you would like to receive and the kind you’d rather not and watch your paper cuts go away.

And this morning, my sister-in-law shared another great resource with me (Thanks, Amy!) https://www.catalogchoice.org/signup. You can use Catalog Choice to simplify your life and save natural resources…

And minimize your paper cuts.

There are major companies that handle the bulk of mailings for things like grocery circulars and advertisements throughout the country and allow you to opt out of their mailing lists for five years at a time. Valassis (formerly ADVO) is one of them.

And, if you really want to get serious about unwanted correspondence, www.privacyrights.org has a full page of steps on how to clear out the other bits that Catalog Choice and DMA didn’t. These require a little more intervention, sometimes a phone call, but the names and numbers are there, if you want them.

But I bet there’s something you would like to receive in the mail – a Robin Wilson Home Soy Candle! Don’t forget to add your entry to this week’s Green Giveaway!

Image: Newscom

Post from: Blisstree

Help Minimize Your Mail (and Your Paper Cuts!)

Production of junk mail consumes natural resources and energy to make the annoying, unsolicited, endless attempts to sell you things you don’t want. And then it’s your problem to sort through and recycle. Not to mention the added risk of identity theft which will cut into the dollars you were planning to send to Sierra Club.

Get Help:

• 41pounds will reduce your junk mail & support your favorite charity
• Green Dimes will reduce your junk mail & plant a tree
  
• Earth Class Mail online mail, they’ll recycle the junk & forward the good stuff

Do-it-Yourself:

• Obviously
• Consumers

Read More:

• Reclaim Your Mailbox at TreeHugger
• Mailbox or Mausoleum at Ideal Bite

Post from: Blisstree

Green delivery: no more junk mail