Stopping (paper) Junk Mail
Stopping junk mail is an excellent example of something people can't wait to do to reduce their personal energy consumption (both fossil and mental). It's a win-win-win (except perhaps for the post office, but they need to get with the greener times in any case). There are companies that do this too, most notably PaperKarma, which has an app that lets you photograph the mail and upload it to them. But why wait when you can proactively most of your weekly junk mail with just a few clicks.
Quick Links to get rid of common Junk Mail
Useful Junk Mail Resources
Soren's results
- https://www.optoutprescreen.com/ and/or 1-800-5OPTOUT stopped the credit card offers.
- Calling bank(s) and telling them not to share any of your info for any reason definitely helped.
- ADVO / Redplum and Pennysaver have stopped coming.
- The money mailers, BB&B coupons, etc have all stopped coming.
- I've opted out of the yellow pages: hopefully no more.
Can junk mail be stopped?
Yes. A few years ago (2002?), I (Soren) noticed a message about 1-800-5OPTOUT on the back of a credit card offer. I figured I'd try it, leaving my name and address on an answering system. To my surprise, the credit card offers disappeared within a month. After buying a house, I began getting new types of junk mail. I called my lender and asked them to stop each of the five types of advertising they thought I wouldn't mind getting. That helped, but competing lenders thought paper mail might tempt me. After searching online and finding little about mortgage mail, I turned to Consumer Reports which recommended registering with the Direct Marketing Association. It cost a dollar, but the OPT-OUT stuff had worked once I registered my new address offers so I went for the DMA. Since then (early 2007), there have been days where I have received only real mail! Only two simple actions eliminated at least half of my junk mail (counted by item). I've since taken out both (physically large) local "circulars" and VAL-PAK. Now if only I could convience my local newspaper only to deliver the paper ... :P
-Soren
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.