Your Guide To Green

Ever feel like you’re drowning in paper and wondered if the piles of catalogs, credit card applications, coupon books, flyers and other junk mail are spontaneously multiplying when you’re not looking?

Well it’s not your imagination. Nearly four million tons of junk mail is delivered each year in America according to ProQuo, a free service for stopping junk mail. Some days it feels like it all landed at my house.

So just what’s a busy person to do to get out from under this mountain of paper? I have some quick and easy strategies that begin with reducing the need for using paper at all. Number one is signing up for online banking and online bill paying. Both eliminate the need for printed bills, statements, envelopes and yes, even postage, as often the funds to pay the bill are transmitted electronically.

Next, I open all credit card applications, find the “postage paid” envelope, write “Please Remove” where my address is and send it back. The results have been great. In the year since I began doing this I have reduced the number of credit card applications I receive by more than 80 percent. I have started doing the same with catalogs and coupons I do not want and I can see my desk top on a regular basis now.

I also realized that my ATM receipts were creating pounds of waste each year, so now I make a note of my deposits and withdrawals and NEVER print ATM receipts. I’ve even taken my paperless quest beyond my home and office to my favorite lunch spot – Pie Zanos Kitchen (http://www.piezanoskitchen.com/) in Phoenix. I have requested “No receipt please” so often that they have programmed their cash register to only print receipts when a customer requests it. Great pizza with less paper – gotta love it.

Plus there are all the catalogs that we receive.  Many of them I never requested and just land in the circular file without ever being looked at.  For those and the few other odds and ends that have 800 numbers on them I just pick up the phone and call.  Usually they are happy to remove me from their list as it is quite costly to print and ship them.

So, now I’m thinking maybe we take this challenge to a whole new level. Let’s try “Leaf, Rock Scissors” and drop the paper here too…