STOP JUNK MAIL ALREADY !

I just got three unsolicited "Your are pre approved" credit card offers. I don't want another credit card. Along with those offers I get free magazine issues and free news paper trials that i have absolutely no interest in. You would think that with all the spam around the Internet, snail mail-junk mail, would be a thing of the past, that is not to be. The amount of direct mail that catalog companies, Internet purveyors, and coupon credit card companies send out each year continues to climb according to the U.S. Postal Service. When I worked at a 100 unit apartment complex, every week at least a hundred advertising circulars sat in the mail room in those "Property of the USPS" plastic containers.Most often than not we threw them in the recycle bins UN opened.And do we really need telephone books anymore? I get all my info off the Internet. What a total waste of trees. The annual greenhouse gas emissions from the production of junk mail are equal to those of 3.5 million cars. Junk mail also has non environmental problems. It exposes you to identity theft and is just a waste of time to sort through. If you spend five minutes a day dealing with junk mail for instance, you blow a full 30 hours a year. Time you could use to read a good novel, hang out with your family, or simply gaze up at the stars in the sky. Usually your name and address end up on junk mail lists because you've purchased something with a credit card or subscribed to a magazine. Merchants sell your information to others. You may have tried stopping your junk mail in the past, perhaps by contacting the Direct Marketing Association, the largest industry trade group, to little or no avail. But fighting the junk mail hydra requires a multi pronged approach, one that environmental groups and ISP's are taking up in equal measures. Now, several paid and some free services can effectively stop between 80 and 95 percent of all that mailbox clutter. You can stop some mail by opting out at Equafax or Trans Union when you check your credit report. I just did !


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