During the post-holiday season, retail catalogs begin swamping mailboxes as the stores where you shopped add your address to their mailing lists. The huge amount of paper and ink used to produce catalogs is an environmental no-no. Producing all these catalogs is a big waste of energy and resources, especially because most of the products and information can be found on the retailers’ websites.
Put a stop to the catalog deluge before it begins by refusing to provide your address or phone number when you shop. If you place your order by phone, tell the operator to keep your name off the company’s mailed catalog lists. (image source)
If catalogs are still piling up at your house, here’s how you can stem the paper tide:
1) Call the 1-800 number provided in the catalog and ask the operator to remove your name from the company’s lists.
2) Sign up for free with Catalogchoice.org and cancel catalogs you no longer wish to receive.
3) Pay $19.95 and Stopthejunkmail.com will let you choose which catalogs you wish to keep; the group will contact the others repeatedly until they have removed you from their lists.
4) Stop 85-90% of all unwanted catalogs and junk mail for 5 years for $41 at 41pounds.org.
For more ways to reduce catalog clutter, see all ten tips here.
Forest Ethics calls junk mail an ‘environmental crisis.‘ You can sign their petition to end junk mail here.
As a green marketer, it’s also up to us to educate our clients on this kind of waste.
Besides printing catalogs, here are a few environmental wake-up calls for corporations to consider concerning their communications:
• Printing 10,000 bumper stickers equals 1.6 tons of CO2
• Printing a 10,000 piece mailing equals 2.1 tons of CO2
• Printing 10,000 yard signs equals 10.7 tons of CO2.
The impact of these activities have been largely overlooked but groups such as SustainCommWorld.com are in the forefront of our industry providing research and awareness in this arena. They discovered that the 10 percent of the companies they surveyed had not even considered reporting on the carbon footprint of the publications they advertise in. In an effort to create meaningful change in the greening of the media supply chain, they publish articles, newsletters, and produce tradeshows in order to move the needle for marketers and business owners toward true sustainability in the marketing field.
We all need to be in this together.
Carolyn Parrs
http://www.womenofgreen.com
http://www.mindovermarkets.com
http://www.greenmarketingblog.com
Thanks for the very good tips. Reading this I recall that I am getting a few catalogs both at my house and my parent’s house (due to a few orders made during visiting). In the same vein I am also trying to generate less paper myself … any notes I take I take on the computer and I use a printer as seldom as possible.
Thanks to all of you who wrote to say you will be taking issue on this. Keeping catalogs at bay is an ongoing battle, but one that’s very worthwhile.
Thanks so much for letting your readers know about this. I appreciate the link back!