Ferndale, Mich.-based nonprofit 41pounds.org -- its name is based on the average amount of junk mail a person receives each year -- offers a similar service. For $41, it guarantees to stop junk mail for five years. It erases your name from direct mailers like Valpak, ShopWise, Reader's Digest, Publishers Clearinghouse and Bed Bath & Beyond. It also donates $15 of your fee to nonprofits such as Stopglobalwarming.org.
Stopthejunkmail.com will put the brakes on junk mail to small businesses as well as consumers, for $20 a year.
None of these junk-mail-stopping services has been rated by consumer organizations such as Consumer Reports. But ever since signing up for GreenDimes this summer, I can happily report that my junk mail has stopped; the only pieces I now receive are from the environmental groups to which I belong.
If you don't want to pay anything to stop junk mail, check out Catalog Choice, organized jointly by the Natural Resources Defense Council, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Berkeley, Calif.-based Ecology Center. The Web site allows individuals and businesses to remove their names from the mailing lists of catalogs they don't want. Simply register, find the names of the catalogs you no longer wish to receive, enter the requested information into the Web form and click "Decline." Catalog Choice will then contact merchants on your behalf.
Why focus on catalogs? Although they constitute only about 15 percent of the direct-mail pieces sent out in 2006 -- that's about 15.5 billion catalogs -- "they have a disproportionate effect because of their weight," explains the NRDC's Kate Sinding. Sinding believes consumers aren't the only ones who will benefit from the service. "We think this will help merchants, who can mail to people who want to get their catalogs and not waste money mailing to people who don't," she says.
Of course, the junk mail industry is hip to the fact that most people loathe much of what they produce. So the Direct Marketing Association is getting in on the act, sort of. Its new Commitment to Consumer Choice requires its 3,600-plus member companies to "notify consumers of the opportunity to modify or eliminate future mail solicitations." As of October 2008, you should see a line on every piece of junk mail that explains how to get your name removed from the companies' mailing list. If not, says DMA senior vice president for corporate responsibility Patricia Kachura, you should rat them out to the DMA. "Failure to comply means they can be brought to the DMA board of directors and could be expelled from the association," Kachura says.
The DMA has also made nonbinding environmental recommendations, such as increasing recycled-paper content. And, for $1, the group offers its own consumer Mail Preference Service. The service claims to remove individuals from DMA-member lists; it doesn't remove them from the lists of nonmember companies or from credit card or other financial solicitation lists, which are handled by other concerns. You can opt out of financial solicitations for free, though, by visiting OptOutPrescreen.com, a site jointly run by the four largest credit information agencies.
Finally, in dealing with junk mail, you might want to participate in new efforts by ForestEthics, the Center for a New American Dream and other groups to launch state "Do Not Mail" registries. The registries would prohibit direct marketers from sending unsolicited mail to those who sign up, much in the way the federal "Do Not Call" registry prohibits phone solicitations. "State 'Do Not Call' registries led to the creation of the federal 'Do Not Call' registry," says ForestEthics' Chester Vance, explaining why the groups are focusing their efforts on state legislation first.
The environmental benefits of such a registry could be pretty wide-ranging. And then, hey, think of all the time it could free up to deal with spam.
About the writer
Liz Galst is a regular contributor to Plenty. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Newsweek, and Better Homes & Gardens.
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