Stop Receiving Junk Mail

If you want to free up some of your time and save a few trees along the way then it’s time to figure out how to stop receiving junk mail. Hey it could also free up a bit of your sanity.

Almost half of the junk mail delivered is thrown out and in the US alone, over 100 million trees are needed – each year! Here are a few reasons why you should stop your junk mail.

• save energy – not only the transportation costs but also sorting and other production costs
• tax dollars – the cost of mail for the government is staggering
• time – the average person spends 8 months of their life sorting mail
• landfill – while most municipalities recycle, not everyone chooses to so the landfill adds up

So what can you do then?

1. Get registered to remove yourself from the national mailing list. In Canada you can sign up at the Canadian Marketing Association Do Not Contact Registry to prevent future mailings. In the United States you can visit the Direct Marketing Association. These are the big guns and will reduce the initial bursts of mail dramatically. You must contact them every 5 years.
2. In the United States you can get yourself off of the Credit Card lists by visiting https://www.optoutprescreen.com/ or go to Equifax, TransUnion and Experien via post, telephone or on the web.
3. Stop giving your name and address to any retailers.
4. Call any mail order catalogs you are receiving and ask to be removed.  You can go to Catalog Choice to stop your magazine subscriptions and Newsletters & yes coupons. If you are still interested in the products – join online, all of them have a website.
5. On the topic of websites, each of the companies you frequent has a website – banks, utilities, telecom, etc. Most of them have an option to stop mailings. Calling or writing to them can take this one step further by asking to be removed from any lists – they sell the names for profit. They all have an option to pay online and in Canada you can get ePost Bills from Canada Post.
6. Contact any company directly that gives you junk continually.
7. Adjust your name to track the “culprits” that share your info and then report them.
8. Do not fill out your warranty cards, your receipt is all you need. If they insist, then add a note that says not to share contact info with anyone or not to be put on a mailing list.
9. Services in the US like 41 Pounds (the average junk mail for each citizen) and Tonic Mailstopper offer paid services for very reasonable fees & a free option too.
10. Call your Phone Company and ask to stop receiving that phone book…one of the largest culprits.

There you have it. That should be a pretty good starting point. If you go for the paid option it will save you time and energy but the whole process shouldn’t take more than a few hours of time. Time saved once you don’t have to open, organize and recycle all that mail (you do recycle, don’t you?).

Now here are two bonus tips to dramatically reduce your junk. If you move, only contact and provide new address details to the necessary companies. I’ve moved so much over the years that I’m on very few lists – except for the one my bank sells. Second tip – put a sign on the door/mailbox requesting no flyers and junk mail, almost everyone will honour this.

Awareness Programs also exist like  The Red Dot Campaign in Canada and Forest Ethics in the US. Don’t be afraid to take it a step further and talk to your governement officials. If they don’t see the concern, they won’t do anything to stop junk mail. So, take the time to review a few of the steps and you will be well on your way to stop receiving junk mail.

if you liked this post, take a gander at these ones!

• keeping a simple office
• the impact of not recycling
• reuse, the forgotten r
• green changes that make a big impact
• first steps to a life of voluntary simplicity