75% of the mail I get is junk mail. Why not start right there???

Think about all the junk mail you get!! What do you do with it? Right into the old trash can....right? Think of all that worthless waste filling up landfills. It has to be in the billions of tons a year, forget that it's a waste of trees in the first place.

I don't want to hear the "advertising" excuse, because if people are throwing it away and not even looking at it, then it's worthless advertising. It's a waste of epic proportions.

Maybe this is more of a rant but I think the "Fragile Earth" category is appropriate.

Peace

Here's a cuunning plan to reduce your junkmail...

If any of your junkmail has a 'freepost' address, take a housebrick and wrap the junkmail round the brick and enclose a letter stating that you do not want anymore post thankyou very much, wrap up like a normal parcel and put the return freepost address on the front and post.

Should cost the business that sent the offending junk a small fortune in postal expenses if enough people do the same!

Can't say as I completely disagree, but since so many people (me included) have added themselves to "no call" lists, this is another way to go with focused advertising. It's typically based upon a certain demographic as identified by zip code. I'd rather have it in my mailbox than on my phone, but from an ecological perspective, you make a good point.

A "good" response rate for DMDR (Direct Mail - Direct Response) is around 3%, as I recall.

I actually ocasionally find something in the mailed ads that I find useful. Often enough that I generally give them a cursory glance, anyway.

Then they go into the recycle sack, along with the newspapers. The local school takes magazines, newspapers, mail and cardboard for recycling. I dump it off about twice a month.

I'd like to see them make telephone directories optional. I almost never use a paper directory, and those are a disposal nightmare, since they all become simultaneously outdated in a specific area.

I stopped about 90% of the junk in my mail with a simple sign.

"NO JUNK MAIL OR FLIERS"

I stuck this to the mailbox about 6 months ago and all the crap just stopped coming. Anyone in Canada can do this and it's against the law for them to deliver any unaddressed junk to your box.

I'm not sure we have that option in the US. And even so, it still needs to be disposed of by somebody, so the ecological impact still exists. Maybe?

If you get junk-calls rather than mail, you could try a telesales counter-script or an alternative that I find works every time is to ask for the sales-callers credit-card details. When asked why (they'll usually refuse) tell them that you need to confirm their identity, and that if they have a problem trusting you with their creditcard numbers, then why should you?

why not just put return to sender on all the junk you dont want ?
that should take are of it all ..

I think of this all the time.

I work at a big telco, and when I go in the mailroom and see the stacks and stacks of DM that got returned, it makes me sick.

If every company that did DM just stopepd or sclaed their operations back we could save about a rainforest worth of trees.

Why are we so ignorant when it comes to this kind of stuff?

Originally posted by chibihogoshino
why not just put return to sender on all the junk you dont want ?

It wasn't just the postal carrier filling my box, we were getting the junk from all the pizza places, and the bags of ads from local newspapers.
The Hamilton Spectator (local newspaper) was one of the worst, even without a subscription to the paper they would drop a bag of junk in my box once or twice a week.

Most of the stuff that was cluttering my box could not be returned without me paying postage. My little sign cut out all this extra stuff, and I noticed that a few other people in the neighborhood have put up similar signs to stem the flow of junk.

I have had to call a couple companies to remind them of the law, but for the most part, the junk has stopped.

I moved to London from the states about 4 months ago and I've been mailed more junk mail here than I ever got back home. sales magazines, clippings, full 30 page advertisements, all kinds of crap addressed to me from the very week I got here. It's crazy....I agree something has to be done, it's not just the "pissin' me off" factor, but it has to have a huge toll on the enviorment.

[edit on 7/5/2007 by SportyMB]

Originally posted by SportyMB
I moved to London from the states about 4 months ago and I've been mailed more junk mail here than I ever got back home. sales magazines, brochers, all kinds of crap addressed to me from the very week I got here. It's crazy....I agree something has to be done, it's not just the "pissin' me off" factor, but it has to have a huge toll on the enviorment.

Hehe, I hear that! I get alot of junk mail, but fortunately, alot of it is the right kind of card or paper to make a pretty good roach out of it, so it all get's used in the end anyway

Well, we used to get a TON of "junk mail" as well. Mostly catalogs and stuff. I know it's a pain and a bit time consuming, but all you have to do is call the 800# on the back and tell them to take you off their mailing list. Simple as that.

Do it today! Make a stack and go through them one by one and help reduce the waste!!!

Junk mail. This is the sort of nonsense that makes you want to pick up an AK-47 an just start shooting in a crowded venue. "Badad dadd a da da da dah daH DAH!!
But that would be wong.

It's the same with junk spam, too. Just think of all the time, expense and bandwidth used in sending spam, for what? Who actually responds to this stuff?

Do you really buy viagra from the place that sends you a misspelled spam email?

You may think that it's just digital and therefore not physical resources, but everything comes from somewhere, right?

There is, indeed, a way to stop junk mail and telemarketers if you live in the US. So here's a collection of guides -- you can do your part for the envrironment by getting your own junk mail stopped and encouraging friends and family to get it stopped for them.

If only 1% of the people you tell actually stop the junk mail, it's still worth the effort!

www.obviously.com...
Notice that sending bulk mail back won't help. The Post Office won't deliver it.

You can contact the Direct Marketing Association. On the front page is a "remove my name from mailing lists" button. (note that they want $1.00 to take you off the list) www.the-dma.org...

More about the DMA and their lists and getting off of them:
www.dmaconsumers.org...

Bay Area Cities have a "kit" you can print out to help you stop junk mail:
www.stopjunkmail.org...

Stop those stupid credit card solicitations (I'm going to do this one THIS EVENING!!!)
www.optoutprescreen.com...

More good tips:
www.ecocycle.org...

I like the ValPak coupons, but it turns out I can stop them and then just go to their website and print out only the ones I want. Now, I like that!
www.coxtarget.com/mailsuppression/s/DisplayMailSuppressionForm

Tired of junk email? Use a disposable email address when signing up for things:
en.wikipedia.org...

email.about.com...

So... let's all get together and get some of the junk out of our lives! Take some action and then go teach others how do do the same! And tell them to pass it along. The world will be a better place without all that junk!

[edit on 7-5-2007 by Byrd]

[edit on 8-5-2007 by Byrd]

Dont get mad, get even:

In terms of junk-mail/calls you could make it work to your advantage and actually make money.

1) Get yourself an '0845' or any other premium-rate prefixed number (tell your telecoms provider that you're starting a business from home and that you'll be a sole-trader)

2) Apply for everything that comes through your door as junk mail...just leave out some of your essential personal-information so your 'genuine looking' bank/credit/loan/homegoods/catalogue etc application will need a follow up call to get the rest of the details, or a follow-up sales call

*make sure you write only your '0845/premium rate' number in the requested feilds of the app forms*

3) Post off, and hopefully you'll be getting follow-up calls to your '0845' number which will earn you money for each call that you recieve from the junk companies



[edit on 7-5-2007 by citizen smith]

Apart from 09 numbers, the best Non-Geo number range you can have is an 0871 number (this is for the UK anyhow). the revenue share off them is quite high, with calls typically being in the region of 10-20p/minute.

One telco I worked for was leasing NGN's for as little as £10/month. Then you get your revenue share back for the calls made. The actual amount you make is dependant on the amount of minutes you clock up, but you could expect at least 25% of the money coming to you for an average amount of calls. If you really do start to pull in those minutes, then you can get something up to 70%, but we're talking several thousand minutes a month.

You don't even need to BS your telco and pretend to be a business, anyone can have an NGN if they want.. Just ring them up and apply.

75% ? You guys are doing good. Id say 99% of my mail is absolute crap. I want to fight my mailman over it but that would be wrong, its not his fault is it. Ive thought about putting a little sign in my box for him but I don't think it would work.

I went to that website Byrd posted to remove my name from the mailing list and I noticed you have to pay them a dollar to stop sending you mail. HA! I know it's only a dollar but doesn't that kind of add up to extortion?

Ridiculous. These guys should be fined for the forest they wiped out producing the junk they send to my house alone.

The best idea is to fill the stamped envelope or the "no postage needed" envelope with their own junk and SEND IT BACK.

Its not against the law and it will give you a warm and fuzzy feeling to know someone who opens the envelope will be pissed.

Originally posted by anxietydisorder
I stopped about 90% of the junk in my mail with a simple sign.

"NO JUNK MAIL OR FLIERS"

I stuck this to the mailbox about 6 months ago and all the crap just stopped coming. Anyone in Canada can do this and it's against the law for them to deliver any unaddressed junk to your box.

Yeah, my local council supplies stickers that you can put on your mailbox. The thing that I found unusual about junk mail in the U.S., is that the postman delivers a lot of it! Here, (Oz) they exploit/employ pensioners/students etc. to do it.

Remember, the more demand that is reduced, will cause changes in supply. They're not going to print as many fliers if they're just going to sit in a warehouse, burning a hole in their pocket.

Sending it back, while a valid response is probably the least responsible, energy wise. If 10 million people send back five pieces of junk mail each, that would quickly add up to tons of waste paper being shipped around the country, which takes tons of energy to transport and process. Better to nip it in the bud before it gets to the mailbox.

NO JUNK MAIL! Put it on ya box.