Your Mailbox Is Full -- Stop That Junk Mail

More than 100 million trees’ worth of bulk mail arrives in American mail boxes each year – that’s the equivalent of deforesting the entire Rocky Mountain National Park every four months.  In 2005, 5.8 million tons of catalogs and other direct mailings ended up in the U.S. municipal solid waste stream and less than 36% of this ad mail was recycled.  The production and disposal of this direct mail consumes more energy than 3 million cars. There are a few simple steps we can take to stop this junk mail from infiltrating our mailboxes and hurting the eco-system.

·    Contact the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) and register online with their Mail Preference Service. Be sure to list each name receiving mail at your address, including misspellings. Note that mail addressed to “resident” or “occupant” cannot be stopped through the DMA.

 ·   There are several smaller list brokers and direct marketing firms in the U.S. besides the DMA.  Again, be sure to send all the variations of your name and address places listed below.  

ü  R.L. Polk & Company (marketing for auto industry) email them at optout@polk.com 

ü  Valpak  (If you like coupons but don’t want to receive all that mail, go to www.valpak.com to print the coupons you want)

ü  Valassis Direct Mail, Inc.   (Select "consumer" and then "I would like to be removed from your mailing list.")

ü  Epsilon Data Services -- Abacus Cooperative Databases  (Send an email to abacusoptout@epsilon.com with “remove” in the subject line and your full name, including middle initial, and address in the message. If you changed your address over the past six months, include your previous address as well.)

·    As soon as you receive an unwanted publication in the mail, call the 1-800 number located somewhere on the piece and ask to be removed from the mailing list (often in the really fine print at the bottom of the page). If you receive an unsolicited mailing that states one of the following: “Return service requested”,” Forwarding service requested”,” Address service requested”, or “Change service requested”, write “refused, return to sender” on the unopened envelope and send it back.  This also works for mail addressed to: Resident, Current Resident, or Current Occupant, if it’s marked with one of the previously mentioned phrases.
To eliminate credit card promotional mailings, call 1-888-5OPT-OUT or visit www.optoutprescreen.com.

·    Catalog Choice is a free website that allows you to opt out of unwanted catalogs. Once you register with the site, you can choose the catalogs you wish to stop receiving, and opt-out requests will be sent to those catalogs on your behalf.  Tonic Mailstopper offers two catalog opt-out services, precycle basic and precycle bundled.

·   Even though phone books are recycled in many communities, more than 660,000 tons still end up in the trash every year.  Contact the companies below to remove your address from phone book delivery lists:

ü  DEX: 1-877-243-8339

ü  Yellow Book: 1-800-929-3556

ü  Verizon: 1-800-888-8448  

ü  Yellow Pages 

·   Avoid getting on even more mailing lists by taking precaution whenever you submit your name and address to anyone. If you're filling out a form such as a warranty, subscription, raffle, customer information card, credit card application, membership for an organization, etc., add the phrase "please do not rent, sell, or trade my name or address" next to the other information you provide. Also, do this every time you're giving a company or organization your name and address over the phone or internet, such as when ordering a catalog or making a purchase.  The sales representative will then flag your name and preference in their computer.

Thanks to Ecocycle for contributions to this list. 

What about you:  Do you get too much unsolicited mail?  Have you tried any of these methods to stop it?  Did they work?