Junk Mail? Get Rid of It
Written by laurel - who has written 45 posts on Green Thinking Blog.
Just about everyone is annoyed with junk mail. We don’t want to see it in our email boxes, but its even worse in our physical, snail mail boxes. How many days a week do you get junk mail? If you’re like me, you get it every day and there’s at least two pieces that you have to shred or throw away. So what can we do about all the wasted paper resources and piles of trash that junk mail causes?
First, go sign the petition to stop junk mail at DoNotMail.org. You can remain anonymous or you can include your info and rant about why the junk mail really makes you angry.
Second, take some action to “opt out” of the junk mail you receive. Visit the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service page and follow the three steps to register. The service costs $1.00 and its estimated that it can reduce your junk mail by 75%. PrivacyRights.org also has an informative page about reducing your junk mail from specific types of business or services. They usually advise you to contact companies directly and ask to be removed from their contact list.
Third, designate a box in your home or a corner of your desk where you can stack junk mail. As long as it doesn’t have any of your personal information, toss the mail in that pile and drop it off for recycling once a month. Of course, if it does include your personal information, shred it and throw it away.
Have some ideas or advice of your own? Share with us!
July 12th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
You don’t even have to pay the $1 if you sign up online. It is secure and easy. To Stop Junk Mail I use MyJunkTree and stop it all in one place. I used them to stop the weekly coupons, the misc. junk mail, phone books, and the catalogs I no longer wanted. It was great. Simple and easy web site to use, check em out.
July 31st, 2008 at 5:27 pm
For me, Tuesday is the big junk mail day, and it all just goes directly in the recycling bin. Still, I should probably sign up for these opt-out services, just because of the convenience factor. That reminds me, I also have to re-add my number to the do-not-call list again… It’s not just junk mail, it’s full-blown junk contact.
August 14th, 2008 at 4:20 am
SpamAid for Outlookis a good solution for protection against spam and unsolicited emails. It works fine for me.
August 26th, 2008 at 5:35 pm
I happen to be one of the owners of MyJunkTree and as a new company I search the web to see if we are getting any visibility out there and it seems the word is getting out. Thanks for the support.
We launched the company because we were tired of all the junk mail we were receiving and we personally did not want to bounce all over the web to contact all the different companies to stop it all. First and foremost we wanted to let people choose what they wanted to let come to their home knowing that some people really do like some of the coupons and catalogs. So our clients choose what they want stopped.
We also had to provide a service that is different than the other services out there, so here is what we offer:
1. We have a database of over 1300 catalogs that you can choose to stop.
2. We have over a 2000 charities/Non-Profits that you can stop solicitations from.
3. Stop the delivery of the national phone directories.
4. Stop the delivery of the weekly coupons.
5. Stop the general credit card offers as well as the ones from your own major bank.
6. Stop the miscellaneous junk mail from the data brokers.
7. You can register on the National Do Not Call Registry from the website.
8. You can order your no strings attached free annual credit report right from the website.
9. We plant trees with every new membership.
And, yes we are a paid service and yes you can do everything that we do for free, if you want to do all the research and spend the time contacting the companies yourself it can easily be done. We have just done all of the legwork for our clients and feel there is value in the service we provide.