This week, take some time to think about how much unnecessary paper we are using up each day. When you see your fifteenth movie of the Philadelphia Film Festival, don't pick up yet another copy of the film guide. Don't print out that third recipe for macaroni and cheese from your favorite food blog, complete with nine extra pages of reader comments. Don't print out the Juno screenplay and re-read again, shaking your head and wondering how that schlock won an Academy award. (Oh wait, maybe that's just me who is doing that). Don't subscribe to a printed publication that can be read online.

Speaking of online publications, here's a good example of how wasteful society has come to be with paper. National Geographic has recently introduced the Green Guide, a magazine claiming to be "The Resource for Consuming Wisely." After recently letting all magazine subscriptions lapse in an effort to save paper, I was nevertheless intrigued to subscribe to the Green Guide given that they offer the option of a paperless e-subscription. After paying the $12 subscription fee about a month ago, I instantly received an email with a link to view the inaugural issue of the magazine online. So you can imagine my surprise when, in the mail yesterday, I received a hard copy of that same issue. Their webpage does give the warning that it is a magazine "written for general consumers, not for enviromaniacs," but sending a physical copy of the magazine was entirely wasteful. Even though they tried to be environmentally conscious by offering the e-subscription, they failed. Failed doubly, I would say, because not only was it a disappointment to have that wasted paper hit my mailbox, I would not have subscribed to the magazine at all if print had been the only option. For shame, Green Guide, for shame. Even though Green Guide's effort to offer a paperless option was a resounding "fail," one would hope that more magazines would offer this option in the future.

Beyond periodicals, try to find other areas in your life where you can cut out the paper. See some suggestions below, and feel free to leave others in the comment section.

Telephone directory. Yellow Pages Goes Green is a movement to stop the unsolicited delivery of Yellow Pages and White Pages allowing them to only be delivered to home and offices that request them, instead of the current practice of delivering to all. The main motivation is to help local governments establish ordinances to promote the goal, but they also provide a service for individuals or businesses to sign up to stop telephone book delivery to home or office.

Banish junk mail. Green Dimes is a junk mail management system aimed at stopping the delivery of unwanted junk mail. Their "Basic" service is free and you can use that to remove yourself from common junk mail lists and opt out of catalogs. They also offer paid subscriptions where they do more of the work for you. Be warned that if you sign up, even for the free aspects of their service, they want you to give a credit card number to validate your identity and mailing address. If you don't sign up for their service, you can still sign their petition to create a "National-Do-Not-Mail Registry." (Note: today that link was giving an error message, but it might be worthwhile to check back.)

Paperless account management. Another super easy thing to do is go paperless for your banking, cell phone bills, loan statements, etc. Lately it seems that many companies are encouraging customers to enroll in paperless billing and statements, but please contact your personal service providers if you haven't already been contacted by the particular company to go paperless. (Just remember to do all personal financial transactions over a secured internet connection.)

And don't forget to continue recycling all of that paper that can't be avoided.

Image Credit: Flickr user bravenewtraveler.