Thursday, October 21, 2010

How to Stop Junk Mail



There is a fantastic organization dedicated to removing unwanted junk mail from the world and from your mailbox: CatalogChoice.org. The next time you sort your mail, save a pile of the stuff you would rather not get any more of, go to this site, and fill out some information. The basic service is free, and includes tracking the replies of the companies you have contacted through them.

You can use Catalog Choice to opt out of mailings from non-profit organizations, too, and one of the reasons that you can specify for opting out is "I want to help the environment". I find it ironic that I have to use this environmental organizations who have proceeded to spend the entirety of my donation on asking me for more donations.

Catalog Choice even keeps score of how many trees and other resources you have conserved by using their service. As I well know from the games industry, watching one's numbers go up can be addictive.




Thank goodness for Catalog Choice, because my previous attempt to halt junk-mail was a total failure. The post office couldn't figure out my post cards, and most of them were sent back to me. Grrr.

I'll be upgrading to the paid version of Catalog Choice soon, I think.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the advice. I get so tired of junk mail. It goes right from the mailbox to the shredder then the compost. But they make it harder to do that by putting in little plastic windows and cards.

I had all my mom's mail directed to my address after her death last year, and I get more junk mail from her address than my own. They especially target the elderly.