Yesterday gave me cause to celebrate - you see I have been in a war against junk mail for a year and I declared a partial victory when only three items came through the slot - and no catalogs or credit
offers. Although I loved getting mail as a child, years ago the daily drop became another household chore, and contributed to unsorted piles and heavy recycling loads. But CatalogChoice.org helped me clear my name off the lists of Pottery Barn, Williams Sonoma, LL Bean and plenty of others. If ever I want to make purchases from those companies, I’ve learned to make my choices online, then phone in my order so that I can confirm with a human being that I won’t immediately be put back on their mailing lists.
Not that anyone is getting offers of credit in this financial crisis climate, but I attribute my lack of solicitations to signing on to optOutPreScreen.com. According to Forest Ethics, “junk mail’s contribution to climate change is the equivalent of more than nine million cars, seven US states combined, or the emissions generated by heating nearly 13 million homes for the winter.” Wow - not to mention the trees felled in pursuit of fueling consumerism! Forest Ethics has launched a campaign to form a “Do Not Mail” registry similar to the successful “Do Not Call” efforts passed in to law five years ago.
We all appreciate the end of dinner time phone solicitations - just imagine the savings in time and resources to enjoy the same for junk mail. Click here register your support.
2 responses so far ↓
1 Tim // Oct 9, 2008 at 8:46 am
I happen to be one of the owners of MyJunkTree and as a new company I search the web to see if we are getting any visibility out there and I post n relevant Blogs.
We launched the company because we were tired of all the junk mail we were receiving and we personally did not want to bounce all over the web to contact all the different companies to stop it all. First and foremost we wanted to let people choose what they wanted to let come to their home knowing that some people really do like some of the coupons and catalogs. So our clients choose what they want stopped.
We also had to provide a service that is different than the other services out there, so here is what we offer:
1. We have a database of over 1300 catalogs that you can choose to stop.
2. We have over a 5700 charities/Non-Profits that you can stop solicitations from.
3. Stop the delivery of the national phone directories.
4. Stop the delivery of the weekly coupons.
5. Stop the general credit card offers as well as the ones from your own major bank.
6. Stop the miscellaneous junk mail from the data brokers.
7. You can register on the National Do Not Call Registry from the website.
8. You can order your no strings attached free annual credit report right from the website.
9. We plant trees with every new membership.
And, yes we are a paid service and yes you can do everything that we do for free, if you want to do all the research and spend the time contacting the companies yourself it can easily be done. We have just done all of the legwork for our clients and feel there is value in the service we provide. So check out MyJunkTree and make difference in your mailbox.
2 lorraine // Oct 10, 2008 at 2:13 pm
I followed Annie’s fab advice and opted out of everything I could possibly opt out of!
I also joined MyJunkTree, following the above glowing above, and entered in the details for the stash of catalogs I have been collecting just for this purpose. I must say that Smith & Noble got back to me immediately, so that was a positive sign! Watch this space….
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