Junk mail is annoying. I think we can all agree on that. But more importantly, it has a huge environmental impact. Each American receives an average of 41 pounds of junk mail per year which equates to 80-100 million trees cut down annually. Just for junk mail! New York University says 5.6 million tons of junk mail ends up in American landfills every year (source). And those stats are from two years ago.
Reducing junk mail saves trees and gets rid of one less annoying thing to deal with every day. As a marketer, I understand that direct mail can have a significant impact on sales for many businesses, but there are customers, like myself, that don’t buy from catalogs or direct mail postcards.
Luckily, there are ways to opt-out of a lot of the junk mail you receive. From catalogs to credit card offers, I’m including specific instructions on how to reduce your household’s junk mail. If 100 of you do this, and it ends up cutting down 50% of your junk mail, that would equal 2,050 pounds of mail. Over a ton of paper, literally.
I’ve gone through and completed all of these steps for July’s sustainability challenge. Will you join me?
Catalogs: I feel like I never shut up about Catalog Choice, but I love it. I save all the catalogs I get over the course of each month and cancel them in one big sweep on Catalog Choice at the end of the month. You simply type in the catalog name and your info and opt-out. For any catalogs that aren’t part of their database, they give you the phone number to call directly. It takes about a minute for each catalog and it feels great when you finish.
Credit Card Offers: Most credit card offers come from one of 4 consumer credit reporting agencies (Equifax, Experion, Innovis, or TransUnion). You can opt-out of offers that come from the mailing lists owned these four agencies for 5 years by using optoutprescreen.com.
You have to enter your SSN when you do this, so I checked multiple sources to make sure this was legit. Harvard’s sustainability page suggested it and the FTC also links to it here as well as dozens of other reputable sources. I went through the process myself to test it out.
Below is a screen shot of my confirmation:
Mailing Lists: You can register online with the Direct Marketing Association’s mail preference service to remove yourself from other national mailing lists. I went through this process as well and they charged a one-time fee of $2.
Below is a screenshot of my confirmation page:
Valpak: You can suppress your address from Valpak (those blue envelopes filled with coupons) mailings here.
RetailMeNot: Unsubscribe from their mailers here.
PaperKarma App: Of course after I did all of that, I came across the PaperKarma app which you can subscribe to for a $25 annual fee. The app is so awesome and very easy to use. You snap a pic of the junk mail you get and upload it to the app which makes it easy if you’re getting the mail then tossing the papers into the recycling. It’s basically the same idea as Catalog Choice but also includes (via their FAQ page):
- Associations
- Catalogs
- Charities
- Coupon offers
- Credit offers
- Direct marketers
- Insurance offers
- Local mailers
- Magazines
- National mailers
So if you only do one thing on this list, sign up for that because it couldn’t be easier and it can reduce your junk mail. They mention on their site and I read it in other places as well, but there is no app or site that can stop you from receiving the following:
- Account, admin & billing-related mail from companies you transacted with
- Ballot issue, election campaign & vote related postcards
- Every Door Direct Mail (a USPS product that “carpet bombs” a zip code with junk mail)
- Free-Standing Inserts
- Legally required notices
- USPS product offers
Of course for local companies, you can always call them directly. Let me know if I’m missing anything on this list and if you’ll be joining me this month!
Yes to all of this!! Thank you for sharing so many great resources…I swear by Catalog Choice but need to tackle the rest!
If you love CatalogChoice, you’ll really love Paper Karma. It makes it even easier!
I love this! Thank you for this post. We live in a house where we are the second owners. The original owners built the house and lived here until going into retirement homes. We still get their junk mail and even with calling the organizations sending it and letting them know they were deceased – I couldn’t stop it! I will try this for them and us to help stop all this paper!
That happened to us when we moved in too. Now I get maybe one letter/piece of mail a month for them!
Love this! I started using Catalog Choice a bit ago after you recommended it and it has cut down on our junk mail SO much! Thanks for the other tips!
Really happy to hear it’s working for you!
Awesome tips! Thank you! Junk mail drives me crazy!
I get about 2 ‘Refinance your mortgage’ letters every day…how do I get rid of these!?
If you use optoutprescreen.com it should include mortgage offers as well.
I totally feel you on the annoyance of junk mail but a lot of small businesses make their bread and butter off “junk mail”. And shockingly it still works as a marketing tool. But if everyone could unsubscribe from it there would be a ton of people out of work.
As a marketer, I totally appreciate direct mail as a way to make sales and connect with customers, but there are also many people (like myself) who never shop from direct mail pieces/catalogs so it doesn’t make sense for them to waste their dollars sending them to me.
I think this might be my favorite blog post ever! Thank you for doing the work finding these resources. Junk mail drives me crazy!
Wahoo best comment ever, thank you!
Thank you for sharing this! Just followed all of your recommendations 🙂
Never ever comment but was so motivated to do the card opt out I followed your link and it’s very unclear that you are opting IN not out! So now I’m dealing with that. Very very frustrating.
Oh no, I’m so sorry to hear this! Which link was it so that I can clarify?
Best post ever.
I feel 10 pounds lighter already! Thank you for compiling these resources all in one place.
You’re so welcome! I hope they helped.
Didn’t Garnet Hill sponsor you on items in the past? I think they are a great company,with a nice outlet store in NH.
They did! Great company. So are most of the companies that send catalogs. I just don’t shop that way!
Done – thank you so much for this info
I hate receiving junk mail! I get so much of it. I still get junk mail for previous owners of my home form over 20 years ago!
Thank you for this post! I have been meaning to do this for FOREVER and finally just tackled it for both me and my husband. Now I just need to collect catalogs for a bit so that I can use Catalog Choice to put an end to them!