Catalog Choice Partners with Keep America Beautiful to Help Americans “Reduce” During America Recycles Day

Today is Keep America Beautiful’s America Recycles Day, the only nationally recognized day dedicated to the promotion of recycling programs in the U.S.

In an effort cut down on paper waste and the need for paper recycling our friends at Catalog Choice have partnered with Keep America Beautiful to provide free junk mail opt-outs through a special website, americarecyclesday.catalogchoice.org.

Here are some more details we received from Catalog Choice about this partnership:

Catalog Choice – a TrustedID company and the nation’s leading mail preference service – has announced partnership with Keep America Beautiful’s America Recycles Day (ARD). Held annually on November 15, ARD is the only nationally recognized day dedicated to the promotion of recycling programs in the United States. As part of ARD’s efforts to encourage Americans to reduce, reuse and recycle throughout the year, Catalog Choice is offering free opt-outs of unwanted junk mail at a special website, americarecyclesday.catalogchoice.org.

Catalog Choice will track participation and the resulting environmental benefits including trees, greenhouse gases, water and solid waste saved. “Protecting your privacy by stopping unwanted mail is one of the easiest things we can do to save energy and conserve natural resources,” said Scott Mitic, Chief Executive Officer, TrustedID. “We are excited to join forces with Keep America Beautiful and America Recycles Day to help Americans ‘reduce’ by opting out of unwanted mail before it arrives, reducing the need for recycling junk mail.”

Every year, U.S. households receive over 83 billion pieces of advertising mail, 46% of which is never read and 38% of which is not recycled. Catalog Choice allows consumers to opt-out of the direct mail they no longer wish to receive. To date, Catalog Choice has connected over 1.6 million consumers nationwide who want to manage their privacy with more than 8,000 direct-mail companies to reduce the amount of unwanted mail and minimize its environmental impact. Consumer opt-outs have resulted in saving approximately 798,000 trees, 332,430,000 pounds of greenhouse gas, 117,842,000 pounds of solid waste, and 800,607,000 gallons of water.

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Top 100 green apps: MailStop Mobile app from Catalog Choice

As part of our effort to promote a more sustainable lifestyle we are assembling a list of the top 100 apps that will help you go green. Apps become an integral part of our life and a valuable tool and we believe we should also take advantage of them when it comes go greening up our lifestyle.

Starting this week, we'll update you here every Friday with a new app we add to the list. Today we're happy to introduce you with an app that was launched this week - MailStop Mobile app from Catalog Choice. This is a very cool app that will help you to use Catalog Choice services and reduce your junk mail. This app is for iPhone and iPad and it's free.

Here are more details about MailStop Mobile app:
The free app is available for download in the iTunes App Store. Once installed, members login or create a free Catalog Choice account, take pictures of their unwanted mail and upload those images to www.catalogchoice.org. Catalog Choice will then communicate opt-out requests to companies and monitor compliance.

The MailStop Mobile app works in sync with one’s free online account and is used to opt-out of all types of direct mail including catalogs, credit card offers, donation requests and coupons. The first five MailStop Mobile opt-outs are free. Members can buy additional opt-outs within the app priced at $1.99 for five, $6.99 for 20 or $14.99 for 50.

“Eradicating junk mail just got easier and fun,” said Chuck Teller, Executive Director, Catalog Choice. “MailStop Mobile turns your smartphone into a tool that declutters your mailbox in seconds, protects your privacy, saves trees and eliminates waste.”

MailStop Mobile is the newest service in a line of premium opt-out tools from Catalog Choice, including MailStop Envelopes and MailStop Shield. A version of the MailStop Mobile app will be available for Android users in 2012. For more information, visit www.catalogchoice.org.

You can check top 100 green apps at http://www.ecolibris.net/greenapps.asp. As you'll see, this list is in work, but we promise to update it every week until we'll have all 100 green apps.
Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

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Catalog Choice is launching a new service to combat increasing junk mail

I wonder if there's anyone who is happy to receive junk mail. I really doubt it, but if there's such a person, he's probably going to be happy to hear that the U.S. Postal Service aggressively seeks to increase direct advertising mailings and you probably will see more junk mail coming on the holiday season.

For all the rest (the 99% perhaps?) the good news is that you can take measures to avoid this ridiculous amount of waste with the help of Catalog Choice, an organization that is working to help consumers combat the impending tidal wave of junk mail.

This Berkeley-based non-profit launched last week a new service that you might want to check - MailStop™ Envelopes. The idea behind these envelopes is that users can purchase them for $6.75 each, fill them with up to 15 mailing labels from unwanted mail and send the envelopes back to Catalog Choice. Their staff will then scan the labels, fulfill the opt-out requests and record the transaction in customers’ secure accounts.

Companies have 90 days to honor requests before formal complaints are filed and then submitted to the FTC. Customers can use the envelopes to opt-out of any unwanted mail including catalogs, donation requests, circulars and coupon mailers, as well as phone books. The envelopes are available for purchase at www.catalogchoice.org and can also be gifted to friends and family.

Another option Catalog Choice is offering is free opt-out service - this service has been expanded to include phonebooks, coupons, and other marketing and donor solicitations. Now you can use Catalog Choice to opt-out of postal mail and name sharing from more than 3,000 companies.

So no matter what option you choose, the sooner you act the better for you, your mailbox and the environment!

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

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Green Options - Catalog Waste Part 2: Making the Catalogs You Receive More Sustainable

As part of Eco-Libris' ongoing content partnership with Green Options Media, we feature a post that was originally published by Robin Shreeves on September 1 on Sustainablog. Today's post is about catalogs and this time how to handle those you actually want.

Last week, I wrote about the paper waste associated with catalogs in Catalog Waste Part 1: NOW is the Time to Cancel Unwanted Catalogs and Stop Paper Waste. If you're receiving catalogs that you don't want, cancel them and seriously curb your paper consumption in one easy step.

But, what if you don't want to cancel all of the catalogs you receive? Sometimes, there are catalogs that you actually do use and want to continue receiving. Do you have to be content with receiving many, many copies of the catalog when one a year or one a season would suffice? Do you have to be content with the catalog companies using 100% virgin paper?

No, you don't. Here are some things you can do:

• Call the companies of the catalogs that you do wish to receive and tell them that you would only like to receive a certain number of mailings a year. Not all companies are set up to do this yet, but more and more companies are offering this option. If a company comes out with an "early fall catalog" and a "fall catalog" and a "late fall catalog" (this is common with clothing companies), most likely the items inside the catalog are the same, but the picture on the cover is different and the pages have been rearranged. You can request that you be sent one catalog a season. Or, if you just want a catalog to shop from for the holidays, request only one mailing a year at the beginning of holiday season.

Who support junk mail?

I hate junk mail. Even though I recycle all of of it, we're talking about so much waste of paper, energy, pollution, etc. that I get mad every time I find it in my mailbox. Now I've learned from the Washington Post that there's an organization that thinks junk mail is good. No, I'm not talking about the marketers, I'm talking about USPS - United States Postal Service.

Lyndsey Laton reported last week in the Washington Post ('Effort to Block Junk Mail Slowed') that "barred by law from lobbying, the Postal Service is nonetheless trying to make its case before a growing number of state legislatures that are weighing bills to create Do Not Mail registries". If you're wondering what reason the Postal Service can find to support junk mail, the answer is simple - their business. The Postal Service, according to the article, claims that junk mail (they call it "standard" mail) became a very important part of their business and that many jobs are depended on that.

Well, this argument is not very strong, isn't it? If we'll act in accordance with the Postal Service's logic, then we shouldn't stop any polluting or environmentally damaging activity like driving SUVs or using coal to generate electricity because of its consequences on the suppliers of these products/services.

I really wish that USPS will focus more on how to create new revenue engines, hopefully green ones, instead of trying to maintain services with such enormous environmental impacts (not to mention the fact that junk mail is so annoying!). I want to remind USPS that eight million tons of trees are consumed each year in the production of the 19 billion catalogs that are mailed in the U.S. every year!

I believe that eventually the interest of the public will win and junk mail will be limited by law, so it also makes sense business wise for USPS to get prepared for that day instead of wasting money on lost bottles.

I also want to remind you the great service of Catalog Choice to prevent receiving further catalogs by mail. I wrote about it few months ago and last week I used it for the first time to prevent receiving more catalogs of Pottery Barn, which I really don't understand why they send me in the first place. Anyway, it's a very user-friendly service and it's free, and I hope it will help me now to keep my mailbox safe.

Yours,

Raz @ Eco-Libris

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No more catalogs for you!

Eric Wilson of the New York Times made me very happy. Wilson wrote today ('Deforest Your Mailbox') on a new online service called Catalog Choice that helps people to reduce the number of repeat and unsolicited catalog mailings they receive to their mailbox. And no less important - this service is free of charge!

Any news about an attempt to reduce the amount of catalogs sent to people's mailboxes is great news. Every year 19,000,000,000 (yes, 19 billion!) catalogs are mailed in the US. According to Catalog Choice's website, over eight million tons of trees are consumed each year in the production of these catalogs. Take into consideration the fact that most of the catalogs go directly to the trash bin (or recycling bin in the best case scenario), and you've got pure waste of natural resources.

Catalog Choice is according to the site "a sponsored project of the Ecology Center. It is endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council, and funded by the Overbrook Foundation, the Merck Family Fund, and the Kendeda Fund." Its mission, besides reduction of the number of the mailed catalogs, is to "promote the adoption of sustainable industry best practices. We aim to accomplish this by freely providing the Catalog Choice services to both consumers and businesses."

I tried it and it's a very easy and user-friendly process. You register yourself and then can indicate which catalogs you no longer wish to receive. Afterwards, they update the businesses with the list of consumers no longer wanting to receive their catalogs.

I like Catalog Choice as it creates a win-win-win situation: Customers benefit from reducing their junk mail at no charge, the companies benefit since they save money by not sending catalogs for customers that don't wish to receive them, and of course the environment benefit due to all the trees that won't cut down.

You are welcome to check it out. According to their website, 29,726 people already registered to the site, having opted out of over 103,490 catalogs. And they're online only since last Wednesday!

And last word - if you want to stop receiving any kind of junk mail, check out other services available like one of my favorite sites, GreenDimes.

Yours,
Raz @ Eco-Libris

Eco-Libris: plant a tree for every book you read!