My very first "real" job was as a postal carrier and then a postal clerk. When I bid the inside job, I worked what was called the 'flat' mail. IOW, magazines, advertisements, catalogues and junk mail for the most part. I can tell you that it takes just as much, maybe more man hours to process junk mail as it does first class mail. In fact, junk mail does not pay for itself. Your first class mail and tax dollars help to subsidize your own mail box full of unsolicited junk. Then you have to decide what to do with it and spend your time trying to recycle it. Why? I guess somebody convinced somebody it is good for the economy?

Maureen, thanks for the site on stopping credit card offers. I get tons of them. Thanks to you, i'm gonna try to stop them!

EG

To remove your name from most advertising mail ,
you write to :
Direct Marketing Association
Mail Marketing Preference Services
P.O. Box 643
Carmel , N.Y. 10512-0643
Good for 5 years and it really , really works !
Well worth the price of a stamp .

calliope - I absolutely believe that to be true. The junk mail was a real source of irritation for me - I actually came to think of it as an invasion (of my counter space mostly but also the time that I spend shredding). Some days 10-12 pieces of mail with only one piece being first class. And that was just in my house! How many households are there in America?

EG - it works! I promise! Just make sure you add the names of everyone over 18 who has, or still does, live(d) in your house.

Gatormom - thanks for the info - I've made a note.

I distrust any site that requests the type of information that should NOT be needed, such as home phone number. It seems like another method of database gathering, phishing- especially regarding social security numbers. Legitimate or not, some of the information requested is NOT necessary.

It's crazy to have to feel so paranoid these days. Yes, no one has a right to consider my personal information sufficient to direct unwanted trash to my mailbox. Just something else to shred and put in the recycle with everything else along with those wretched checks that come with my credit card statements.

I would rather do what Andy Rooney suggested on 60 Minutes. Take all the junk offers, stuff it into the postage paid envelopes and mail. Let the companies sending us this crap pay the postage.

Linda

That is so funny that you brought this subject up, msyoohoo. I was just thinking about how much junk mail I get and how stupid it is for them to keep sending the same crap over and over again. Can't they get the message that no I am not interested in their credit card? I am so gonna go to that website. And I'll do the direct marketing thing too, gatormom, thank you.
It would be too wonderful to get rid of it. I'm like you, msyoohoo, my countertops are invaded too. And yes it is a big irritation, especially when the envelope doesn't have a return address on it and they trick you in actually opening some of them just to find out that it's junk. Grrrr!
Thanks guys.

i don't open them, i have a shredder, it's perfect for my compost!! i tell hubs, ohhhhhh honey!! yay!!! more for me!! he looks at me like i'm totally nuts!! i say ohhh baby, please remember to take off that plastic, and then i tell him i love you so much!! your the total bomb!! have i told you how much i love you lately??
he keeps shredding them for me, i keep putting them in the compost!! LOL **big grinn** ~Medo

I usually toss junk mail unopened. I tossed an envelope in the trash a few months ago, then my intuition told me to retrieve it and open it. I didn't recognize the name on the return address, it was a title company. To my surprise there was a $284 check in that envelope. My mortgage company escrow account had overpaid property taxes a couple of years ago and the money was being refunded to me.

I heard that if a person writes "refused" on junk mail, crosses out the bar code and the address, and drops it back into the mail, then the sender will have to pay postage due when it is returned to them. That usually results in the sender taking the person off their mailing list. I've done it a few times, seems to work.

Lorna

"... I would rather do what Andy Rooney suggested on 60 Minutes. Take all the junk offers, stuff it into the postage paid envelopes and mail. Let the companies sending us this crap pay the postage...."

LOL, Linda, that is great! The only thing that would stop me is wondering how the companies would dispose of it. At least I compost all mine. I personally thank Capit*l One for it's HUGE contribution to my compost pile and new lasagna beds.

The downside is, I have three bags of old mail waiting to be shredded, sitting on my office floor. Always other things to do beside shred paper, it seems...

:)
Dee

Funny, this has been a topic of universal irritation ever since I've been frequenting message boards - about a decade now - and it just won't go away. So, I have fun with it.

First, it takes far less time to sort thru mail as it comes in than to attack a huge pile later, so quit stockpiling it. I usually have it pretty well sorted by the time I get back to the house from the mailbox. The marketers are getting pretty cagey in packaging, so it is hard to tell what's real and what's junk (as Lorna mentioned above) and I'm just as annoyed as the rest of you. But, I refuse to waste my time, dedicate counterspace or spend money on a super special shredder. I do acknowledge that identity theft is real, but like so much else in today's world, the 'fear factor' marketing of all sorts of products to prevent it is way out of control.

I open most of it and if there's a postage paid (pp) envelope, I don't bother stuffing it, I just seal it up and mail it back to them empty. If the contents are name/detail specific, I rip them up, or maybe shred them if I'm in the mood, if they aren't loaded with cardboard type stuff which jams my kindergarten grade shredder. I hardly believe a bad guy is going to maurade my trash and piece together that credit app or try to cash the 'instant check' soaked in whatever unsavory drippings are in my kitchen wastebasket.

A twist often mentioned years ago is to tape the pp cards/envelopes securely to a brick or other heavy object and mail it - funny, but too much work for me. I also collect the annoying subscription cards that fall out of magazines as well as the stiff page pp cards inside and mail them back - blank - as well. Mindless entertainment.

Junk mail is annoying, but I'm afraid we're hard pressed to stop it. Since Marketing 101 subscribes to the 'if it is working, continue' mantra, for every one of us objecting, there are apparently hundreds who fall for it and make money for the company. Otherwise, marketers wouldn't keep doing it. We have met the enemy, and it is us.

For the time being, I'm content to keep my friendly mailman in business going both ways. JMO :o)

You made me laugh, zigzag. Before I put my name on the no-call (phone solication) list, I used to play games with solicitors. My favorite was to answer the phone saying, "Hello, is Mrs. Magruder there?" Often the caller would become confused, tell me I had the wrong number and hang up. Even though friends knew I did this, it often threw them for a loop, too.

Lorna

Whenever you get a marketing phone call , stop them immediately and politely say , " Please take me off your calling list ."
By law , they must do this .
No other phrasing works . You can rant and rave , scream and yell and you will still get calls .
I tell all the political callers to " Please take me off your calling list ". It works .

I'm on the do-not-call list for marketers, and that has worked great. What the problem is now is all the charities. Sheesh, they're worse than the people selling stuff!

I shred most of my junk mail not so much for security purposes, but because it works better in the lasagna beds I build and breaks down faster in the compost.

As far as stockpiling, with three jobs, two kids, and a house to take care of, I don't always have time to stop what I'm doing and shred there and then. So, it gets piled up till I can get to it - or I assign shredding to one of the kids as one of their chores, lol.

I also have a ton of school papers and paper from work that I bring home to shred, so it's more than just junk mail.

:)
Dee

I'm on the 'do not call' list too, but as has been said, that doesn't stop the charity begging - so I resort to a curt 'sorry, no' and a definitive click (me hanging up). Their repeated calls really just annoy me when I scramble to get the phone 'cuz I'm expecting a legitimate call and ... it's THEM.... again .... grrrrrr.....

I finally got caller ID, but am amazed at how many legitimate callers (my bank, for instance) come thru as 'unknown' or 'out of area' or 'toll free number' so I tend to answer anyway, defeating the whole CID purpose. Well, it does still work for avoiding annoying relatives, so I'll give it that much.

Dee, for your purpose stockpiling does work (and puts the kids to work too!) - I didn't mean to slam .... was just saying that for the folks who stockpile mail and then wonder why they didn't get the cc bill in time to pay w/out penalty ('cuz the bill was in the pile, dummies!).

And, for your amusement (glad I made you laugh, Lorna) another upside to mailing back pp cards/envelopes is that with stuff going out daily, I can see when the 'up flag' on my mailbox is down, so know when my new quota of junk mail has arrived without walking all the way to the mailbox! More mindless entertainment .... :o)

Sorry, zigzag, I didn't mean to imply that you were slamming, to use your word, lol. I was just bemoaning the fact that I'm so busy I don't have time to attend to the little things immediately, and so they grow to be big things. I once upon a time had my pile almost gone, at which point I was going to start on the basement supply of old checks, paperwork, insurance papers from when my teenagers were born, lol. You know, all the paperwork you save "for your records". But then, I missed a week or so of intermittent shredding and the pile grew once more. The basement files are once again a far-off dream...

I got a caller ID package about a year ago when we went wireless, and the ID monitor or whatever you call it is still sitting in the box on the back of my desk.

:)
Dee

No harm, Dee - if you won't rat me out about the dozen banker boxes of saved, worthless paper & files I've been moving around for years! We're all guilty!

I just hauled it all down from the attic, borrowed a high capacity shredder and keep vowing to reduce them to compost ...... just haven't quite gotten around to it yet - you know how it is. I am so ashamed!

Meanwhile, get the ID monitor up and running, for entertainment purposes if nothing else!

Dee - you said it...you don't have the time to deal with it...and you shouldn't have to. That was my point in posting - that, plus the amount of wasted resources to give us with something that we don't want in the first place...a load unwanted mail.

I have never thought of sending back the pp envelopes/postcards to the companies!! What a great idea, I am so going to do that. I love it. I feel evil, lol!

Zigzag- you posted " I resort to a curt 'sorry, no' and a definitive click (me hanging up). "
Try cutting them off and requesting that they take you off their calling list forever . It can take a few weeks or a month or two to take effect but the amount of calls will really diminish over time .

Msyoohoo - truly, I did understand your point and don't mean to dilute it w/silliness. But sometimes we have to choose our battles and ending junk mail is just too big for me, so I try to make dealing with it fun!

Closer to home, I'd like to see my City stop sending 3 diesel spewing, noise polluting trucks up and down each street every pick-up day ... one truck for trash pick-up, another truck for the recycle bins and still another truck for yard clippings. Some genius needs to invent one truck to do it all - they've already got the robot arms, so why is this so hard?

In my tiny 'hood of about 67 homes on two cul-de-sac streets, trash pick-up is utilized by all (excluding any vacancies, of course), but recycle and yard waste seem to average, at best, 40 and 10% respectively, yet the trucks roll thru unfailingly. Just seems like there should be a better way.

Sorry, this is off topic ..... sometimes I just get on a roll! :o)

Dee - I believe in the kinder, gentler approach to "green" so I am not judging - just adding my 2 (unsolicited) cents. (Who am I to judge!) Silly is good. Silly makes the world a better place so I guess it is "green" too.

Charity calls are grrrrrrr..... I used to be polite because these people are just doing their jobs but they like to lay guilt on you and that just gets my back up. It is particularly annoying when you offer say $10 and they tell you that $25 is their minimum! Excuse me? Click.

Maureen

You can 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 check my mail twice a month now. 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 in the whole subdivision.

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

Here is a link that might be useful: Stop Junk Mail yourself

This seemed too easy, but I just taped a little note that says "No Admail Please" to the inside of my superbox. Haven't had a single piece since! :)