Looking for an easy summer project that can make a positive impact on the environment? Consider canceling unwanted junk mail and catalogs.
To cancel junk mail the Federal Trade Commission says to visit the Direct Marketing Association's (DMA) consumer website. There you can choose which catalogs and offers you get. The registration costs $2 and lasts 10 years. You can also opt out of credit and insurance offers for 5 years by visiting optoutprescreen.com.
To cancel your unwanted catalogs, visit Catalog Choice, which will help take you off lists of companies that consider you a prospect. You can also handle it yourself by gathering all of the catalogs you get in the mail each month and taking a few minutes to cancel the ones you never look at. You may need to call the customer service number which is usually listed towards the middle of the catalog by the order form – and read a representative your customer number, which is on the back cover over the address label. We know those customer “service” calls can take time and be frustrating, but just think - cancelling once will stop many weeks or months of that publication in the future, which equals a lot of trees you save. Also many companies now provide a way to cancel their catalogs online which is even easier - just google the company name and "cancel catalog" and it should take you to the site to cancel!
It is estimated that 100 billion pieces of junk mail are delivered in the U.S. each year! According to Story of Stuff, 100 million trees are cut down to produce that junk mail. The production, distribution and disposal of that junk mail is equivalent to 51 million metric tons of greenhouses gases annually, the equivalent emissions of more than 9.3 million cars.
So this summer take a minute to declutter your life AND help the planet by canceling that unwanted junk mail. For a deeper dive into how to stop junk mail, check out this blog.
Ready to take action?
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