I think this is a great concept, but $4 a month seems excessive.

I Love Upstate,
I disagree. I have been trying to reduce the junk mail coming into my house myself and it is a lot of work. Lots of phone calls (and of course, the ensuing maze of automated button pushing). And much of this is to no avail, because you can remove yourself from a mailing list and your info might re-sold the next month and you're back on. This service's website says that they do the maintenance to keep you off of the lists. I actually think $4 a month sounds cheap!

You can register with the the DMA for $1 and be removed from most major catalogs and you're information can not be resold to other catalog/marketing agencies. You can also opt out of credit card-type junk mail at www.optoutprescreen.com or call 1-888-5OptOut.

I subscribed to Greendimes a few months ago. The volume of my junk mail has decreased considerably. And since they use some of the money to plant trees, I don't mind paying $4/month.

Just got to Junkbusters.com and follow their directions. You will soon stop receiving telemarketing calls and junk mail.

In a similar vein, the City of Philadelphia offers a free, little-publicized (no surprise there) option to stop the delivery of menus, circulars, etc. that everyone seems to loathe getting. Aside from being an annoyance, it's a waste of paper and creates the whirlpool of junk that ends up blowing down the street anyway. Fill out the form at the following link, and they'll send you a sticker to slap on your front door. I did it, and to my surprise, I no longer have to throw out 30 take-out menus every week. Less waste, cleaner streets!

http://www.phila.gov/li/faq/81-74.pdf

Registering with the DMA was one of the first things I did and I have seen no noticible reduction in catalogs or other miscellaneous junk mail. One of the things I did manage to reduce significantly was credit card solicitations, but that was through www.optoutprescreen.com , which is free. Also, almost all of my bills are received electronically, so I don't have that paper or the fillers they stuff in with the bills. Junk mail is a huge pet peeve of mine -- I long for the day when I arrive home to find just one pretty, hand written envelope in my mailbox.

I just signed up. Thanks for the tip... and for the optoutprescreen tip on this thread. I hate junk mail. I don't even like receiving magazines in the mail anymore. For me, most of that stuff is clutter I don't want to bring into my home.

Follow-up... Love Green Dimes' feature that allows you to list out catalogs you'd no longer like to receive. My list came to 16! That's a lot of paper that will hopefully not be wasted on me in the future...

A friend of mine sometimes takes the return-postage-paid envelopes from junk mail, fills them up with something cheap and heavy (e.g. paperclips) and puts them in the mail...

Well really, it's only 3.35 a month...which is what a latte costs anyway, and this spares you and the planet all the annoyance of that junk mail. They do all the legowrk for you, because there's so many lists, and like someone pointed out above, your name gets resold, so maintenance is required, all of which they do for you. I love it, and feel great that they even plant a tree for me.

Do Not Mail Opt-Out Law would be fair to everyone.

The proposed recent "Do not mail" is an Opt-Out law. Only those not desiring advertising mail need opt-out. Anyone desiring advertising mail can do nothing - and continue to receive it. Why deny those wishing to avoid advertising mail the power to do so?

I do not consider handling unwanted advertising placed against my will on my personal property to be a civic obligation!

The US Supreme Court said in the Rowan case in 1970, ““In today's [1970] complex society we are inescapably captive audiences for many purposes, but a sufficient measure of individual autonomy must survive to permit every householder to exercise control over unwanted mail. To make the householder the exclusive and final judge of what will cross his threshold undoubtedly has the effect of impeding the flow of ideas, information, and arguments that, ideally, he should receive and consider. Today's merchandising methods, the plethora of mass mailings subsidized by low postal rates, and the growth of the sale of large mailing lists as an industry in itself have changed the mailman from a carrier of primarily private communications, as he was in a more leisurely day, and have made him an adjunct of the mass mailer who sends unsolicited and often unwanted mail into every home. It places no strain on the doctrine of judicial notice to observe that whether measured by pieces or pounds, Everyman's mail today is made up overwhelmingly of material he did not seek from persons he does not know. And all too often it is matter he finds offensive.”

Furthermore, the Supreme Court said, “the mailer's right to communicate is circumscribed only by an affirmative act of the addressee giving notice that he wishes no further mailings from that mailer.

To hold less would tend to license a form of trespass and would make hardly more sense than to say that a radio or television viewer may not twist the dial to cut off an offensive or boring communication and thus bar its entering his home. Nothing in the Constitution compels us to listen to or view any unwanted communication, whatever its merit; we see no basis for according the printed word or pictures a different or more preferred status because they are sent by mail.”

We need a nationwide “Do Not Mail” law to create a one-stop, convenient place for homeowners to give senders the aforementioned affirmative notice that we do not want certain kinds of mail sent to our homes.

http://www.newdream.org/emails/ta19.html

Signed,
Ramsey A Fahel

US Postal Service won’t let you refuse mail.

If the US Postal Service would abide by its own rule, each homeowner could easily stop junk mail from getting into their mailbox by putting a written notice on their mailbox expressing their preference.

The US Postal Services practices are supposed to be according to the Domestic Mail Manual (DMM). The DMM contains provision 508.1.1.2 that says, “Refusal at Delivery: The addressee may refuse to accept a mailpiece when it is offered for delivery.” I interpret this rule to mean that if a homeowner wants to refuse an unwanted mailpiece (i.e. junk mail), the homeowner can do so when the mailpiece is offered for delivery. More to the point – refuse it before it is put into the mailbox!

In practical application, since the postal carrier comes to homes at different times each day, the homeowner cannot be waiting at the mailbox to dialogue with the mail carrier about each mailpiece. The only realistic way to interpret 508.1.1.2 therefore is that the homeowner should post a notice on the mailbox telling the postal carrier about the homeowner’s preference. The notice to the postal service must be specific and unambiguous. For instance, a homeowner should certainly be able to write, “No mail that is not addressed to the Jones” because that does not require the postal carrier to make a subjective judgment. On the other hand, it would not be acceptable to write “no junk mail” because the definition of “junk mail” is subjective and the mail carrier cannot decide.

Unfortunately, the US Postal Service has written to me that they will NOT honor a notice refusing mail, not matter how specifically it is worded, because the postal carrier does not have time to sort through the mail at my mailbox to pick out the pieces that are not addressed to me. Therefore, the US Postal Service is passing their sorting and disposing task onto me by putting all the mail they want into my mailbox, even though this seemingly violates 508.1.1.2.

Since the U.S. Postal Service will not abide by 508.1.1.2, homeowners need to stop unwanted mail at the source (i.e. by blocking the sender from sending it). We need a nationwide “Do Not Mail” law to create a one-stop, convenient place for homeowners to give senders notice that we do not want certain kinds of mail sent to our homes.

http://www.newdream.org/emails/ta19.html

Signed,

Ramsey A Fahel

I recommend using, http://www.catalogchoice.org/, its free and works well. I signed up to green dimes over a year ago and did not see any difference in my junk mail and was unhappy with their customer service.

I'm glad these options exist but, really, paying any amount of money for the privilege of not receiving wasteful junk mail smacks of a twisted system to begin with.

Thanks I Love Upstate and Max for the websites and numbers. I can afford the $4 a month Greendimes charges but will instead be increasing my donation to Saint Judes each month by $5.00

I get 100 catalogues and registered all of them at Catalog Choice - some vendors "refuse" Choice's notice, a few accept it and most ignore it. Catalogue Choice then gives your 800 numbers to call but, who has time - or believes it would work.

I've also signed up for DMA - have no idea if it helped- and something else that is supposed to stop credit card offers - the sub-prime mess worked wonders on that one. I'll try the other ones listed. But none of these will work if the sellers don't care.

BTW, the telephone Do Not Call list no longer works so well - robo-calls, calls from anyone whose products you've bought (allowed), calls from every charity on earth.

Sorry for the double post but I just went to the Green Dimes FAQ and found this

"We can't reduce mailings you receive as a result of a relationship you have with a company or organization."

So... same problem as with Do Not Call list - if you've ever bought something from any of these companies, no one can order them to stop mailing to you.

What a racket....At 36.00 dollars a year this IS a rip off.
You can accomplish the same thing by doing a simple google search on "stopping junk mail". The few pieces that do manage to get through get marked with "Return To Sender" and dropped at a public mailbox.

As far as "do not call lists"...a simple complaint regarding the offenders to the FCC will put a stop to that as well. You can do that online as well.

I absolutely don't understand why we need to pay money to stop receiving junk mail we'd never asked for in the first place. Unsollicited mail should be illegal. Each week, I receive about 10 lb of unsollicited mail that I don't even read.

I've been doing CatalogChoice.com for a year and have listed 63 catalogs on there. Only 11 have been cut-off. There are a few catalogs I like so I don't want to do an all out no-mail thing, but I wish they wouldn't sell my info especially when I ask them not to share my personal information. What a waste of paper. The worst part is I get a lot of the same ones for my work too. I'm drowning in catalogs!!!

This info is outdated. They've changed the $36 to a one-time fee, and there are other levels of membership if that seems like too much.

For the record, it works pretty well. My boyfriend and I have eliminated most of the catalogues and all of the credit card solicitations that we used to get. The few stragglers are from the companies that refuse to comply with Green Dimes's requests (um, Jcrew? Get with the program!).

So yeah, it sucks that any money has to be spent for this type of thing, but it's worked well for us.

I've had good luck with Catalog Choice. As for the ones that have refused to take me off their list, I've torn off the address page of their catalog and mailed it back to them with "take me off NOW" written in big black letters. I signed up for Catalog Choice in November (at the beginning of the Christmas season when I get a bazillion catalogs) and I started the follow up mailing at the beginning of June. So far, I've only had to notify 10 companies, which I think is a pretty good return!

My neighbor loves junk mail. He also collects it from everyone in the neighborhood. Then he binds it up in logs and uses it to heat his house in winter. Free heating! Keep it coming.

I used catalog choice and it seems to work pretty well.

My main problem with junk mail is the stuff that comes from my two banks, and the few places that I order from (RedEnvelope and Omaha Steaks). I've asked them not to send catalogs, but as soon as I place an order they come right back!

"A friend of mine sometimes takes the return-postage-paid envelopes from junk mail, fills them up with something cheap and heavy (e.g. paperclips) and puts them in the mail..."

I hate junk mail too, but as someone who has done direct mail, I can tell you that this approach does nothing. For one thing, you never know who actually sent it, so you don't know who to take off the list. Second, this mail is opened by a low-paid assistant who doesn't care, or doesn't understand, that this is a protest against junk mail and just tosses it away. I've received these myself and it goes right in the trash. The Business Reply postage you cost the company is nothing to them. You're much better off tearing off the label and sending it back with a request to be taken off the list.

When y'all work for a company (perhaps even your own) that can benefit from direct mail, perhaps you will change your tune.

I am all for eco-responsibility, but not always with a blind eye towards how capitalism functions.

Thanks for the post.

You can also sign do not mail petition (like Do Not Call National Petition)

I did some search online and this is the best resource so far available online (correct me if I am wrong). I have done this 5 months ago and my mailbox is literally empty ( I have paperless billing and also opted out from various mail lists) I check my mail twice a month now. It is beautiful.

I even took the letter from samples provided and wrote it to a local Chinese restaurant that keeps putting fliers in my door. They stopped too in the whole subdivision.

http://awakening.weebly.com/stop-junk-mail.html

I even opted out from the yellow book. What do I need it for, since the internet is right here.