It’s two months since I began the no impact man stage concerned with stopping trash, but my recycling bin is still filling up with paper I never bought, never used, and never wanted. The junk mail pours in.
Five years ago, I bought my step-mother Beth some flower bulbs. The company has sent me two catalogs a year ever since. The product pushers discovered that Isabella was born but not that she has since aged two years, so we get piles of completely useless baby wear catalogs.
Do I ever look at these bundles of the coagulated flesh of dead trees? Uh, no. Do you?
According to the Native Forest Network guide to stopping junk mail, 100 million trees are ground up each year to make junk mail. Um, didn’t somebody mention that tearing down trees is contributing to global warming?
All in the interests of our economy—right?—except that 44 percent of junk mail gets trashed without ever being opened. Together with other types of paper and paperboard waste, the junk mail adds up to 40% of the solid waste in our landfills.
So here’s what I’m doing to stop the tree killers and keep their trash out of my bin:
1. All the junk mail, including that with plastic windows in the envelopes, goes in the recycling bin. For a guide to recycling in your community, go here.
2. I got my name off the credit card and insurance offer lists by going to the credit bureaus’ centralized service for opting out.
3. I spent a dollar—swear to God, that’s the price—to sign onto the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service, which reportedly will reduce my junk mail by 75%.
4. I began calling the 800 number on the catalogs and asking them to take me off their lists
It’s too soon to tell how well all this works, but I’ll report in a couple of months. Meanwhile, a couple of websites tell you how to make your own recycled paper from junk mail, but well, I’m too busy baking bread from local wheat and washing Isabella’s locally-grown, organic cotton diapers. God save me, please, from myself and this crazy project.