This has been bothering me for a long time and I was pushed over the edge last night. Junk mail, me, and the environment.

My present state of being…

GAAAAAAH!

As the saying goes, “Time is money.”

John Muir – a Scottish born American environmentalist, naturalist, traveler, writer, and scientist (1838-1914) – said this about trees and fools: (Emphasis added – you can skip ahead after the emphasis)

Any fool can destroy trees. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed, chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. During a man’s life only saplings can be grown, in place of old trees — tens of centuries old — that have been destroyed. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods, — trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christ’s time — and long before that — God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods, but he cannot save them from fools — only Uncle Sam can do that.

I’m tired of the fools who continue to destroy trees in the name of… Waste. Yep, waste.

Profit, I can understand. If I’m a customer of a company and they have a product or service they want to sell me, well, they have my information on hand. Said company should make it possible for me to control how they are contacting me of course. Ahem… I prefer email. Snail mail doesn’t do it for me.

What is Waste snail mail?

Let me answer that with a question – How often do you receive snail mail for a previous resident of your address?

I’m looking at a piece of mail from Verizon for Thomas B. Jones. Who is TBJ? Verizon, yo, he’s lonnng gone. The previous owners were here for years and their name wasn’t Jones.

This is nothing but waste for me, you, and the environment. WASTE.

I hate it. It drives me over the edge. Why? You ask why?

WHY?!

I care about the fracking environment and will do what I can to stop this waste from arriving in the mailbox because it’s better for me, you, and the world. Yea, I flipping care so I spend my personal time on the phone with customer service reps, after I figure out how to reach a rep because I don’t have a gorram account number, and explain the situation so that the name(s) can be removed from the blasted mailing list.

There are organizations out there that make it easy to get rid of magazines but snail mail? Oh no. No, no, no, no, no. A big fat ‘нет’ (niet) awaits you in mother Russia. See you soon.

Uggggh!

Because I care about the egad environment I spend time, so much time!, contacting you, yea! that’s right you company XYZ, because you’re wasting not only my time but your time, your staff’s time, your money on wasted postage and paper, the USPS staff’s time in the office and out on the route. I can’t even begin to imagine how much lighter the carrier bags would be withe less waste junk mail. Heck, you’re wasting money on oil, water and other valuable resources because your flipity-flippin mailing lists aren’t accurate.

John Muir had it right.

Any fool can destroy trees but Uncle Sam can stop them! Calm down Teabaggers I’m not asking the government to grow but the marketplace isn’t sorting this kind of thing on its own so it’s going to need a push just like the credit card industry got kicked in it’s a$$ to protect the citizens of the USA.

Without a “Do Not Mail” registry, like the “Do Not Call” registry, we’re all forced to find alternative ways to stop this waste of resources and time without any certainty that it will be effective at all. I’m signed up for many but I still can stop a bunch of it. Capital argh!

How can you get rid of some of the junk?

Here are some resource to get you started :

• http://wikihow.com/Get-Rid-of-Junk-Mail
• http://donotmail.org/
• https://dmachoice.org/
• http://forestethics.org/
• http://volunteerguide.org/volunteer/fifteen/junk-mail.htm

There are so many sites out there trying to help people like me, and you right?!, so we can spend more time watching YouTube video of kittehs but there is still no single way… Yet!

Speaking of the National Do Not Call Registry, add your phone number here: https://www.donotcall.gov/

Ahh. Now imagine all the time you won’t spend on the phone with unsolicited callers. Wouldn’t it be nice to have the SAME option with your mailbox. Only the stuff you want will arrive. Well, that stuff plus bills, unless of course they have an ebill option.

Companies, please, PLEASE, stop wasting your money & time, my time, and most importantly, the Earth’s resources.

Right, if you’ve gotten this far you see that I don’t actually hate caring about the environment but this type of time I spend doing what I can to care for it is not lovey-dovey time.

I think I’ll end with a question…

How are you peeps and companies addressing this issue?

image source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/uzvards/2481348414/