I absolutely hate getting junk mail and seeing all that waste immediately getting put into our recycle bin. Did you know that the average American home receives an average of 69 pounds of junk mail every year? And if you are like us you never even look at it. We at least recycle our mail but sadly only about 50% of all mail received ends up being recycled. This adds up to a tremendous amount and actually computes to wasting about 48 million trees every year.
Even though most paper comes from tree farms where they have to do a pretty good job of replanting to keep up with supply and demand, there is still a huge impact on the environment. It’s estimated that 10-24 million gallons of water are used to make this junk mail, enough power wasted that it could have supplied power for almost 250,000 homes this year. Then there is the pollution from making the paper and delivering all that unwanted mail. Awesome.
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Take Action
If you are fed up with the incredible waste and tired of having to sort through it all every day, there really is something you can do about it. There is an organization called DMA choice and it is an online tool developed by the Direct Marketing Association to help people manage incoming mail.
This site is part of a larger program designed to respond to consumers’ concerns over the amount of mail they receive. When asked why a Direct Marketing Association would actually help us not receive junk mail offers, they said: Good question. We hear that one a lot. Each year, direct marketing generates more than $2 trillion in sales and charitable donations in the United States alone. But we know that for direct marketing to remain successful, marketers must maintain a healthy relationship with consumers. That healthy relationship starts by giving you the opportunity to tell us what your mail preferences are—and then requiring our members to respect those choices.
On the DMA Choice site direct mail is divided into four categories: Credit Offers, Catalogs, Magazine Offers and Other Mail Offers. You can request to start or stop receiving mail from individual companies within each category or from an entire category at once.
Here are some steps you can take to drastically reduce the amount of mail you receive.
- Complete your information on DMAChoice.org and specify what mail you still want to receive and that which you would like to opt out of receiving.
- Fill out the info on OptOutPrescreen.com to stop receiving credit and loan offers.
- Consumer Preferences for mailings can also be managed through a company called Epsilon. Epsilon provides companies the tools to bring relevant and targeted marketing offers to consumers. Their business is to help companies reach consumers who are interested in their products or services. Consumers have the ability to opt-out of receiving direct marketing that Epsilon enables. In their Consumer Preference Center, you can find information on Epsilon’s privacy practices including information on how to opt-out of the various services they provide. One method is to send an email to abacusoptout@epsilon.com with your full name, (including middle initial), current address, and previous address to opt out of unsolicited mail.
- For all the rest of the mail you are still receiving, consider signing up for paperless statements or if you are still receiving unwanted mail, take the time once a week to call the company to ask to be removed from their mailing list. And the newspapers or other mail that still make its way into your mailbox can become packaging for shipping things, arts and crafts, shredded paper for stuffing projects, painting drop cloth, and you can come up with other creative ways to make use of the rest.
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Way to go and thanks for caring!
Resources:
http://www.dmachoice.org
http://www.optoutprescreen.com
http://www.forestethics.org/paper-the-facts
