The average resident in America receives over 30 pounds of junk mail per year. This is an incredible number when you consider all of the trees, water, and inks used to produce the junk mail, as well as the amount of fossil fuels used to carry the junk mail to you and carry it away with your garbage/recycling.  

Many people would love to stop receiving unwanted mail and clear out old school and office papers from their homes, but it can be a daunting task.  Keeping up with all the papers that pass through the house may feel like a full time job!  Reduce and manage the junk mail in your house with the following tips and tricks:

• Visit our junk mail page to learn about how to get your name off of lists for credit card offers, direct marketing, and more.
• Contact individual companies/organizations that have your name and address and asked to be removed from their list. Here is some sample language to use each time:
  • "Please remove my name from your marketing database. Do not sell, give away, rent, or trade my name and address to others. Thank you, [give full name and address]."
• Contact all your utilities and other service providers (e.g. Qwest) and request they do not share your personal information with others.
• Proactively request, every time you write down or tell someone your name/address, not to share it with others.
  

To effectively remove your family from mailing lists you will need to make requests for each person in your household, and it may take several months before all your efforts will begin to significantly reduce your junk mail, but it will be worth it!

While trying to reduce the amount of junk mail is great, it is also important to recycle the unwanted mail you do receive. The following types of paper mail are recyclable:

• Mail, office and school papers
• Magazines and catalogs
• Newspapers and inserts
• Phone books
• Shredded paper in closed paper bags