January 15, 2007

How To Stop Junk Mail 4 Free

Several websites offer to help stop your junk mail: you can spend around ten bucks for a do-it-yourself package, or you can pay a monthly fee for provided services. However, if you are willing to put in the time and effort, you can stop your junk mail yourself, for free. There's a great list of instructions at the site for Obvious Implementations Corporation, obviously.com.

Why worry about junk mail? Not only is it a daily hassle, it drains both the economy and the environment:

1. 100 million trees and 28 billion gallons of water are used to produce junk mail each year;
2. 250,000 homes could be heated with one day's supply of junk mail;
3. Americans receive almost 4 million tons of junk mail every year;
4. Approximately $320 million of local taxes are used to dispose of junk mail annually; and
5. Transportation of junk mail costs about $550 million per year.

Interesting read: "A Declaration of Independence from Junk Mail," by Donella H. Meadows, adjunct professor of environmental studies at Dartmouth College.

Sources: University of Oregon; nativeforestnetwork.org; charityguide.org; ecologicalmailcoalition.org.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

wow! those are some astounding numbers. I have been contemplating doing this for awhile, I think now I have some motivation!

Dee said...

thanks for the link. it was an excellent read. now I need to figure out how to get the supermarket paperboys to bypass my house.

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