We need to balance respect for the environment, and individual privacy, against company’s needs to promote their products and services. Allowing the expensive waste of natural resources (trees and oil) used to produce and deliver useless mail which gets tossed in the trash without anyone ever looking at it, also encourages large-scale pollution of our environment. Moving unwanted junk mail makes a huge impact on erosion of the ozone layer and the quality of the air we breathe.
Opt-out of catalogue mail
There are several services you can now use to opt-out of junk catalogue mail.
The DMA [Direct Marketing Association] has a recently-upgraded service of its own which allows you to opt out of individual catalogues. They used to charge a fee for using it but have yielded to consumer pressure and the service is now free.
Catalog Choice (www.catalogchoice.org) is a not for profit service run by The Ecology Center. It’s endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council.
Do Not Call Registration Now Permanent
Now when you register your home or cellphone number with the Do Not Call registry your preference remains in effect until you remove the restriction. This change is thanks to the Do-Not-Call Improvement Act of
2007 signed into law in February 2008. More information at the EPIC website. EPIC is one of the consumer privacy organization which lobbied to get this bill passed.
Get on new and improved the donotcall.gov”>Do-Not-Call List by following the instructions at this website.
Stop all kinds of junk soliciting how-tos
Some fantastic resources are available at these websites:
Do-it-yourself: Stop junk mail, email and phone calls. Some of the information here is a bit out of date, but it’s still the best resource on this subject I’ve ever seen.
Ecofuture.org which cautions “The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) is not your friend when it comes to junk mail. It makes significant revenue by promoting bulk mail and is geared toward servicing that industry.”