Have you stopped your junk mail lately?

I'm republishing this old post today because junk mail seems to be something I think about every January. I receive far less junk mail than the average person (even my mail man thanks me for that!) but some junk seems to creep into my box each year and I resolve to stop it, yet again. Using the links below you can eliminate tons (probably literally and figuratively) of the magazines, catalogs, credit card offers, etc. that you get in your mailbox each day...

One of the websites you'll be visiting is the Direct Marketing Association who is responsible for a large portion of the crap in your mailbox. The DMA (somewhat humorously) claims that "Direct mail is a green way to shop. If Americans replaced two trips to the mall each year with shopping by catalog, we'd reduce our number of miles driven by 3.3 billion—a 3 billion pound reduction in carbon dioxide and a savings of $650 million on gas alone."

Forget the energy and resources that go into growing the trees, then cutting them down and making them into paper, printing the advertisements or catalogs, shipping them to us, then the packaging for the products we've ordered, and the oil used in shipping it to us. Yes, that sounds very green. Let's say we just cut out two trips to the mall each year and go for a walk or bake cookies or work in the garden instead?

{climbs down from soapbox}

So here are some resources to help you stop the flow of junk mail, credit card offers, catalogs, et al. It's easy. You can even do it while you're pretending to work today!

• Catalog Choice: www.catalogchoice.org - This site lets you search by catalog name, then opt out of receiving it. I've managed to stop all of my catalogs except for that darn Pottery Barn. I've found that, if you do order something from a catalog or online store, you may start receiving that catalog again, so you'll have to re-opt-out.
• www.OptOutPrescreen.com is the official website that allows you to opt out of credit card offers (for 5 years or permanently)
• Direct Marketing Association: www.dmachoice.org - Allows you to manage credit offers (redirects you to the optoutprescreen.com site), catalogs and magazine offers, and other random mail marketing offers. I think last time I did this I had to pay $1 by credit card (you also have the option to print the form and mail it with a dollar if you prefer). It's worth the buck.
• Val-Pak (that blue envelope filled with coupons for carpet cleaning and new windows) has an online form. You need to enter the info exactly as it's printed on the Val-Pak you receive, so you may have to wait until you receive the next one. You can also email valerie@valpak.com with "Remove From Mailing" in the subject line. Again, you need to include your information exactly as it appears on the envelope.

While you're out there saving the world, visit www.donotmail.org and sign their petition to create a national Do Not Mail registry similar to the Do Not Call registry.

DNM claims that "...more than 100,000,000,000 pieces of junk mail are delivered each year—that’s more than 800 pieces per household. In fact, junk mail in the United States accounts for one-third of all the mail delivered in the world. Even though 44% of that mail goes to the landfill unopened (source: EPA), we still spend 8 months of our lives dealing with it all."

Now go forth and save a tree today!