Can We Kill the Junk Mail Now...Please?

Junk mail has always been the bane of my existence.  Since moving to our new address in June, we now receive triple the amount of junk because of the previous occupants (one deceased, the other in an assisted living facility, the modern version of a permanent nursing home); all the lovely companies whose lists I worked so hard to get off of while at our previous address who somehow got wind (thank you, USPS) that we moved and  thought we’d maybe changed our minds about receiving all their stupid sales flyers; and our wonderful cable/phone/internet provider who immediately sold my name to a GAZILLION other companies.  Thanks to Time Warner Cable, I began receiving calls from telemarketers less than an hour after our service was set up.  I hadn’t had one of those calls since registering all our digits at the
National Do Not Call Registry years ago and forgot that we had to do it again. 

It only took a day or two to start receiving direct mail offers from both local and national businesses, services and big glossy advertisements (actually, the same one in triplicate at least thrice per week – I guess ‘three’ is the magic number, after all) from politicians (and don’t even get me started on the daily door-to-door harassment by those politicos – something I hadn’t dealt with since the last time I lived in a predominantly white neighborhood about a decade ago…coincidence?).

I fully expect the Fuller Brush Man , Encyclopedia Britannica and the
Javel Water guy to show up any day…which at least has kept my housekeeping skills pretty tip-top…just in case I’m in the mood to buy something I didn’t realize I even wanted or needed.  But I digress…

So, what to do with all this useless paper besides grumbling and recycling?  Well, after doing some research over these here internets I found a great website called Green America Today, which lists all the things we can do to free ourselves from those evil junk mail hooligans.  It seems simple enough, though the cynic in me has very little faith that these companies give a  Fig Newton (I used to really like those) about our trees, our environment, our preferences or our sanity.  But it’s worth a shot and probably burns more calories than grumbling.  Let’s hope it actually works.

Have a clutter-free weekend!