Getting Rid Of Junk Mail- Putting On The Pressure

I don’t know about you, but my worst Junk Mailers in order #1) ATT #2) Chase #3) Time Warner #4) Southwest Airlines #5) Political candidates #6) Coupon people in general #7) Salvation Army #8) Capital One #9) Union Tribune. What I don’t understand is no matter what I do or write Junk Mail keeps on coming. In fact I actually called one of the credit card companies to cancel my card due to the dearth of Junk Mail and guess what they took me off the list and I still have the card.

Do Not Mail has stepped up the pressure on the worst junk mailers; GEICO, Bank of America, Discover, Chase, Capital One, and American Express. The are looking for stories from real people to step up the elimination of junk mail.

You can  Share your junk mail story with them.

Sharing a story only takes a couple minutes and it can be simple as any one of these ideas:

• Tell us who bugs you the most – Name names and tell us what they do to bother you.
• What worries you about junk mail and why? Are you afraid of identity theft, losing important mail, or the number of trees sacrificed to create junk mail? Tell us, and tell us what happened to make you feel that way.
• Share a bad experience you or your family have had as a result of junk mail.
• Upload a photo or video of yourself or your piles of junk mail – Help us show junk mailers the clutter they create and the faces of the people they’re disrespecting.
• Spot the greenwash – The Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) is a false eco-label that misleads people about whether or not products are ‘green’. If you see the SFI logo or any other dubious certifications on an envelope or insert, let’s hear about it.

I Just Gotta Tell Ya:

• Junk mail in the U.S. accounts for over 100,000,000,000 pieces of mail each year—about 30% of all the mail delivered in the world
• Each year American households receive a total of 104.7 billion pieces of junk mail or 848 pieces of junk mail per household, requiring 6.5 million tons of paper⁷
• The average American will spend 8 months of their lives dealing with junk mail
• Entire households only average 1 personal correspondence each week, compared to almost 18 pieces of junk mail⁹
• In 2005 the United States Postal Service processed more junk mail than First Class Mail for the first time, and our postal service is increasingly oriented toward the delivery of unwanted junk mail¹⁰
• Since 1991, national polls have consistently shown that between 80 to 90% of respondents dislike junk mail and would take some action to reduce it if they could
• In a Zogby International poll, 93% of respondents were aware of the Do Not Call Registry and 89% of them supported a Do Not Mail Registry to make it easier to opt out of unsolicited ad mail¹¹
• A national poll by Zogby International found that 92% of respondents discard or recycle at least some of their junk mail without reading it¹²
• Approximately 44% of junk mail goes to landfills unopened¹³
• By the year 2010, almost 50% of the solid mass that makes up our landfills is expected to be paper and paperboard waste¹⁴
• State and local governments and their citizens spend hundreds of millions of dollars per year to collect and dispose of all the bulk mail that does not get recycled. In Seattle, for example, the estimated taxpayer bill for disposing of a year’s worth of junk mail comes to around $400,000
• 6.5 million tons of discounted junk mail entered the U.S. municipal solid waste stream in 2006
• A response rate of less than 0.25% is considered acceptable for the 500 million U.S. credit card solicitations that are mailed monthly¹⁶
• • It takes more than 100 million trees to produce the total volume of junk mail that arrives in American mailboxes each year—that’s the equivalent of clearcutting the entire Rocky Mountain National Park every 4 months
• The manufacture of junk mail releases more greenhouse gas emissions per year than the emissions released by 9,372,000 million average passenger cars.¹ Read our full report, Climate Change Enclosed: Junk Mail’s Impact on Global Warming.
• The Canadian Boreal forms part of the greater Boreal Forest, which stores more carbon than any other terrestrial ecosystem on earth.¹⁹ Despite this natural ability to protect us from the effects of global warming, the Canadian Boreal is being logged at a rate of 2 acres a minute, 24 hours a day²⁰ to produce junk mail and other paper products.
• Deforestation of Indonesia’s tropical forests is responsible for 8% of global carbon emissions.² This destruction is largely driven by demand for pulp and paper for end uses like junk mail. Logging contributes to Indonesia’s status as the world’s third largest emitter of CO2 into the Earth’s atmosphere, despite its relatively small size.²²
• Both Canada’s Boreal and Indonesia’s tropical forests are home to indigenous communities who depend on the land for hunting, fishing, economic development and cultural activities.
• The Boreal provides critical habitat to caribou and half of North America’s songbird species.
• Indonesia is home to 12% of Earth’s mammal species, and 17% of all bird species.²⁴ Many of these, including endangered orangutans and tigers, rely on Indonesia’s rapidly disappearing tropical rainforests for their survival.