According to some statistics, an average adult in the USA receives a whopping 41 pounds of junk mail a year and approximately 44% of this mail winds up in a landfill without having been opened. Imagine that; over a lifetime over a thousand pounds of what is mostly, well, not to put too fine a point on it - crud.
That's far more paper than a fully grown pine tree can provide. Now multiply that by a couple of hundred million people and I'm sure you get the picture. On top of that there's the water needed to create the paper and the environmental impact of inks that can have high concentrations of heavy metals, making the paper difficult to recycle. Then there's the printing process and transportation. Even if recycled paper is used, it's still a lot of resources being wasted.
A while back I wrote about some companies taking the No Catalog Pledge; but they are still a minority. So what do you do to try and stem the tide of junk email clogging up your mailbox and landfill? There's some creative tips here; but a couple of organizations have sprung up in recent times to assist consumers in having their names added to a "no junk mail" list with many companies.
41Pounds
The first is 41pounds.org who claim to be able to stop 80-95% of unwanted catalogs and junk mail. Based on the information you provide, they contact dozens of direct marketing companies and catalog companies and tell them to remove your name from their distribution lists. The service isn't free - it costs $41.00 for 5 years but they state over a third of each new subscriber’s fee is donated to an environmental or community organization of their choice.
Catalog Choice
Catalog Choice has been getting a lot of media coverage in the US of late. I'd also like to thank GLT readers Michele, Cyndy and Lauren for letting me know about this organization! Catalog Choice is a sponsored project of the Ecology Center and endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
It looks to be a fairly simple process - you register online, then using the Catalog Choice search facilities to locate and decline specific company catalogs. It can take at least ten weeks to process your request. Catalog Choice is a free service.
In other countries, we aren't so lucky to have these services. Mail boxes were crammed with over 8 billion pieces of junk mail in 2004 in Australia, and back then the total population was under 20 million. That's a lot of trees. One thing I've found helped was to have a post office box and not to have a letterbox out front. I hardly see any junk.
As for countries such as Canada, the UK etc. I'm not sure of what services are available, if any, to block junk mail.
If you're in the USA, have you used either 41Pounds or Catalog Choice? Is it working for you? Know of other similar services? Share your thoughts below!
If you're from another country and know of effective ways to stop junk mail, please also share those tips below - I'm sure many readers would be very appreciative of the info!
