By Moe Fakih
AEF Consulting, Engineering & Construction, Inc.
It felt like one point I was suffocating from all the daily junk mail that hit my snail mailbox. I stopped opening up those credit card offers that looked like official business or looked like a bill I forgot to pay, and I wasn’t sure I was getting pissed at all the paper being wasted or if they were simply insulting my intelligence? Sometimes these companies try to entice or scare you into opening their mail. It got to a point where those letters were removed from my mail box, looked at for one second, ripped in two and then dumped into the recycle bin.
Entertain me on this quick junk mail journey – somewhere a native ecosystem or a native rain forest was removed, a tree farm was planted in its place, that tree took years or decades to grow, it got chopped down by gas powered equipment in seconds, was processed into pulp using chemicals, turned into paper by using bleaches and other chemicals, got oil based ink sprayed all over, was transported across the globe only to make into my hands and then into the waste bin. Yay, what a great use of resources!
Even if you do recycle the paper not 100% makes it back as other paper. In fact up to 70% of recycled paper is virgin material. But lets face it, when you take a look at trash bins (yes I have done this) you see lots of paper and other items that are headed to landfills and buried forever.
And what informational blog post would be a good post without statistics to make you say, “dang”?
Junk Mail Stats that Make you Say, “Dang”!
- 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.
- Junk mail in the U.S. accounts for over 100,000,000,000 pieces of mail each year1—about 30% of all the mail delivered in the world
- Almost 50% of the solid mass that makes up our landfills is expected to be paper and paperboard waste
- Every year American households receive a total of 104.7 billion pieces of junk mail or 848 pieces of junk mail per household, which requires 6.5 million tons of paper.
- A response rate of less than 0.25% is considered acceptable for the 500 million U.S. credit card solicitations that are mailed monthly.
- Animal species in places such as Indonesian rain forests are losing their habitat due to deforestation and human paper farm encroachment. Indonesia is home to 12% of Earth’s mammal species, and 17% of all bird species.
- A national poll by Zogby International found that 92% of respondents discard or recycle at least some of their junk mail without reading it.
(Stat Source: http://www.donotmail.org)
Where do we go from here?
There is a solution to end this madness. I was able to completely stop credit card advertisements and greatly reduce the amount of junk entering my home. It wasn’t that tough and here’s how:
End Credit Card Mailers
To opt put of credit card mailings go here and fill out the online form at https://www.optoutprescreen.com
Direct Marketers
Telemarketing
The federal government has created the National Do Not Call Registry — a free, easy way to reduce the telemarketing calls you get at home. To register your phone number or to get information about the registry, visit www.donotcall.gov, or call 1-888-3821-222 from the phone number you want to register. You will get fewer telemarketing calls within 31 days of registering your number. Telephone numbers on the registry will only be removed when they are disconnected and reassigned, or when you choose to remove a number from the registry.
The Direct Marketing Association’s (DMA) Mail Preference Service lets you opt out of receiving unsolicited commercial mail from many national companies for five years. When you register with this service (for a $1 fee), your name will be put on a “delete” file and made available to direct-mail marketers. However, your registration will not stop mailings from organizations that do not use the DMA’s Mail Preference Service. To register with DMA’s Mail Preference Service, go to www.dmachoice.org.
The DMA also has an Email Preference Service to help you reduce unsolicited commercial emails. To opt out of receiving unsolicited commercial email from DMA members, visit www.dmachoice.org/EMPS. Your online request will be effective for five years.
That’s it, good luck, and please help reduce the junkfest.
