Green Scene: Mailbox Madness

Apparently the downturn in the economy is leading businesses to overload our mailboxes with an increase in holiday catalogs, sale fliers, and other junk mail. While we understand that it’s important for companies to promote their wares to keep their business alive, we know that all of those catalogs come from chopped down trees.

According to the environmental non-profit agency, ForestEthics, households receive about 18 pieces of junk mail a week. Given the approximate 581,000 households in Philadelphia, that’s 10,458,000 pieces of junk mail a week in our city alone!

If you are tired of getting these catalogs, there are some things you can do to try and stop the mailbox madness. These companies all try to help you trim the amount of junk mail you receive, some for free, others for a fee.

Catalog Choice offers a free service to stop all of those unwanted catalogs from invading your mail slot. Here’s how it works. You sign up for an account and let them know which catalogs you want stopped. They’ll notify the companies on your behalf and ask them to stop. They have more than one million subscribers already. The only downside is that not all companies honor your request.

41 Pounds offers a paid service and promises to get rid of all of your junk mail. They get their name from the estimated 41 pounds of junk mail the average adult in the United States receives each year. For $41, you can stop credit card offers, catalogs, coupons, sweepstakes, and other promotional offers for five years. And, you can also choose a non-profit organization to support with part of your fee: 41 Pounds donates about one-third of all of its collected fees.

Green Dimes has both a free and pay service. For free, you can sign up and they’ll provide you with instructions, websites, and letters you can use to remove yourself from junk mail lists. For $20 a year, they’ll do all the work for you, promising to reduce 90 percent of your junk mail within 90 days.

ProQuo is another free service that will stop unwanted credit card offers, catalogs, coupon and other circulars, and sweepstakes promotions. In four weeks, they say you’ll start noticing less junk mail.

Image Credit: Flickr user ukpylot