My battle with junk mail

I've been fighting a battle ever since I moved to Newark.

It's against the junk mail. And the junk newspapers.

Due to the nature of my residence, the battle has been fought on multiple fronts. One: I now live relatively close to a real city, after growing up in rural PA. For some reason, being in a city means that it's permissible for local businesses to give massive amounts of brochures and coupon books to the "postmaster" (who I imagine must be a shadowy figure who lurches around darkened rooms in post offices across the nation) to distribute to everyone in the city. You can imagine that this doesn't sit well with me.

I can remember having this issue at college, too. When you have an on-campus mailbox, you get flyers from on-campus groups who are trying to drum up an interest in an event or in their own membership.

Point being, I don't care about your event and I don't want to buy wings from Pizza Place #71 on some special Superbowl deal. I consider myself a fairly conservative spender. Heck, I turned off my heat because of the last electric bill... ("hmm... do I really need heat?" ...more on that later). So I don't care about Clipper Magazine or Redplum, and I get sort of annoyed with them for sending me shredded trees in the mail.

I actually did get Redplum to stop via their website. Everything else, I'm sort of at a loss. There must be a way to simply notify this... "Postmaster" character... that I don't want this stuff. Or maybe there's not. Maybe you just have to unsubscribe from every single annoying thing, like with e-mail. UGH. The battle continues on this front.

Front number 2: I live in a place that has been inhabited by people other than me in the last few years. This situation applies to almost anyone who rents. You get junk mail from people who don't live there anymore. Pep Boys has been sending these great coupons for a man whose name I could barely pronounce.

I called them up, and told them that they'd been sending coupons to my address for a man who didn't live there. They said, thanks for reporting it! It's no biggie. The coupons are still on his account, so he can access them in places other than the mail.

No, I said. I want you to stop sending them. Confusion ensued. I tried to explain that I was an "environmentally conscious" individual. Confusion ensued. Basically, they told me I'd have to get in touch with the post office. This is really bizarre to me, but evidently they can't change someone's account unless that someone calls and specifically changes the address. So, basically, if there's someone in the world you really don't like, go to Pep Boys, make up a fake name, register as a member and give them your adversary's address. And then do it a bunch of times in other Pep Boys.

I've also been trying to get Yes! and Crossroads, of The News Journal here in Delaware, to stop showing up at my house. I can tell you the exact dialogue I've had three times over the phone with these guys:

"Hello, this is the News Journal, can I please have your phone number to better assist you?"

"Yeah, you can have it, but I don't have an account with you guys."

"All right, how can I help you?"

"I'd like to stop receiving Yes! and Crossroads at my house. I've already called (X times), and I am continuing to receive them."

"Okay, let me get your address..."


So far, (X) = 3. I dearly hope it won't have to be 4.


There are some good resources online to help reduce your junk mail package, and the statistics they use are staggering. According to ecocycle.org (and some other sites), junk mail in 2005 used up about 100 million trees. That's too many. Even if they're using recycled paper, there are hazards in the ink. I doubt they're all using soy-based, and even if they are, it's an appalling use of something that is generally food.

(I honestly can't get behind too many processes that make food into non-food. Disposable containers made of potatoes are great, but I can't help but think of the hungry people in the world who would have loved to eat those potatoes. It's the kind of affluence that seems so inconsequential, but still sort of disturbs me.)

Anywho, there are some tips online that you can find with a minimal amount of searching, and you can even hire services to proactively reduce junk mail being sent to your house... but really, should we have to pay to defend the planet? I think that generally, when a thing defends our planet, it also tends to put my penny-pinching mind at ease. Most solutions for our environmental troubles do end up cutting us a deal in the long run -- and often, even in the short run!