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7 ways to Green Your Mail
The amount of unsolicited mail and catalogs Americans receive each year consumes trees (an estimated 100 million!), water, energy, and money. Fortunately, there are steps you can take to limit the damage.
Contact the Direct Marketing Association (DMA)
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The DMA is the trade association for direct mail advertisers, and signing onto its service can cut your unwanted mail by an estimated 80 percent.
Ask businesses and organizations, directly, to send you less mail
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Even more effective (though time-consuming) is to contact businesses and organizations yourself and ask them to stop sending mail.
Take your name off the mailing lists
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Some of these organizations are free while others charge, but their role is to help you get your name taken off the mailing lists.
Recycle product warranty cards
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...unless you believe it's absolutely necessary to send them in. These cards are usually unnecessary and are simply methods to get you on a mailing list.
Recycle your paper
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Writing "Refused" or "Return to Sender" may backfire. Standard mail isn't forwarded by the US Postal Service, and will probably find its way to a landfill. Instead, recycle junk mail yourself.
Urge catalog companies to use recycled paper
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If they don't already, call or email these companies and ask them to switch to recycled paper.
Choose alternative paper
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...if you still send mail the traditional way.
Comments
2:15am
First, it is not illegal to send anyone catalogs in the mail. It is illegal to spam by email, it is illegal to telemarket after being told to be put on the “do not call” list, it is NOT illegal to send print catalogs even if you ask to be taken off the mailing list. I would hear all the time “I’m going to sue you for sending these catalogs”. Yeah well, knock yourself out pal, it’s not illegal…get over it.
Fact: You can get off of a company’s list by calling them. If they know you aren’t going to buy from them they aren’t going to waste money by sending you another catalog.
Fiction: That will get you off of all lists. Not gonna happen, and contacting the list distributors isn’t going to do it either. Your information will be bought by another company and the list services aren’t going to throw money away. Also, don’t bother to ask to be taken off the rent/sell list, you wont be. Those individual companies sell your information and they too are not going to throw money away. http://marketmailing.com
11:08pm
This is terrible! My heart is bleeding every time I get another patch of those "coupon packets" or a whole bunch of catalogs...I never look at them and would love to have a way to "opt out". Not because it's too much trouble to recycle but because it's so not eco-friendly to send me all that sh*t.
Maybe we should make the whole mailing-list illegal?
12:42am
des? r u and the other ppl talking about "water melon" or something else?
besides...
its the grl that sits next 2 u in math class