3 Ways to Reduce Paper Waste & Kill Your Junkmail
At the end of this blog post are the 3 links to change your life and our planet for the better in 2010, showing you the way to reduce the amount of paper waste you receive.
The average person in the US receives nearly 11 pieces of junk mail each week, or 560 pieces a year. This amounts to 4.5 million tons of junk mail yearly, of which 44% goes straight to the landfill unopened and unread.
The best thing I did at the beginning of 2009 was stop receiving junk mail through traditional mail. This year was the first year I’d only receive legitimate letters and bills with no paper junk mail. My wife on the other hand didn’t take my lead immediately. The difference in our daily mail was quite stark. I’d receive 1-2 letters and she’d receive numerous offers and 5-6 catalogs.
- 100 million trees are cut down each year to produce junk mail.
- 1 million trees offset 48,000,000 pounds of carbon emissions.
- Eliminating junk mail in the US would offset 480,000 cars.
While I’m happy that I took the steps necessary to stop the flood of junk mail I’ve recently taken the added step of opting out of receiving phone books. I haven’t used a phone book in years and I never knew how to stop them from being delivered… until now. How much is wasted in the manufacturing of phone books?
According to StopThePhoneBooks.com approximately 615 million phonebooks were produced last year
- 500 phone books take:– according to a study in California
- 17 to 31 trees- depending on how much is new paper and how is recycled paper
- 4100 kwh (a 3 bdrm house in Colorado uses about 600 -1500 kwh per month– so that about 3-6 months of electricity)
- 7000 gallons of water ( thats about 14 gallons of water per book).
- Then –how many gallons of gasoline for the delivery trucks? Gas for the trash trucks? Gas for the recycling trucks?
- So– how much did we use for 615 million phonebooks ? — Well, thats about 1.23 million times each of the numbers above — in just one year. Two years ago they only produced 450 million phone books.
If you’re interested in taking a step toward breaking this cycle of waste I highly recommend opting out of receiving junk mail and phone books. In fact I challenge you to tell 10 friends about the ability to opt-out of of junk mail and phone books in order to fast track improving our impact on the environment.
The official way to opt-in or opt-out of credit card or insurance offers
OptOutPrescreen.com
Another resource to opt-out of other direct marketing offers (junk mail)
Direct Marketing Association (DMA) Choice
How to opt out of receiving phone books
YellowPagesOptOut.com
Additional Information on this subject:
Technorati Tags: Junk Mail, Phone Book, Opt-Out, Recycle, New Year, New Year Resolution
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What a great post and such valuable information. I can't believe how hard it was to deal with the yellow pages, but the DMA site was very easy.
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THANK YOU!!! This has to be one of your most valuable posts yet and there have been a lot of great ones. I just followed those three steps! I can't wait to be free of junk mail as we have few recycling options up here and I certainly don't want the junk.
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THANK YOU SOOO MUCH!! I've been trying to figure this out without much success. Can't wait to see less coming through that mail slot!
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Awesome post!
Feeling inspired here are the details for Australians!
For Australians to opt-out of the yellow pages, you need to call 1800 810 211 (followed by option 2, then option 7) on a week day!
While you're at it opt-out of direct phone marketing by adding yourself to the do not call register (Australia Only) – https://www.donotcall.gov.au/regNumber.cfm
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I've done a lot of these opt out efforts over the past two years. I love the difference it has made.
But wow, one kind of junk mail still thrills me: art exhibit announcement cards from photographers. They nearly always look great, making me inspired and hopeful; they're my east way of collecting a bit of art. I continually update my large, really large, bulletin board in my office devoted to announcement cards. So, photographers, send me more!
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Happy new year to you.
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Happy new year to you.
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