Photo courtesy of takepart.com

Junk mail is a total nuisance. it clogs our mailboxes and sometimes it causes us to lose important mail in the middle of the mess. It also takes a serious toll on our environment. Out of the 4 million tons of junk mail that is produced yearly, most of it just ends up getting thrown out, producing 1 billion pounds of landfill waste each year and adding to the destruction of our natural forests. According to http://www.woodconsumption.org/ more than 30 million forest acres are lost annually, and with 40% of these logged trees being transformed into paper it is important that we take any steps we can to reduce our paper consumption, specially the ones that get thrown straight into the garbage bin! The below infographic displays the full circle effect junk mail has on our environment, highlighting the severity of this growing problem.

Infographic courtesy of Lauren Wade

Fed up with this problem we decided to do some digging and found out how we can prevent junk mail from being delivered to our shop and residences. The first way is to cancel your catalogs, credit card offers and other unwanted mail through GreenNYC, a program put in place by the New York City government to lower the cities paper consumption. If you don’t live in New York and you are still looking for a way to stop this problem you can register on the National Do Not Mail List by completing a short and simple form on the Direct Mail website. Any effort to eliminate the amount of junk mail that is produced each year counts!

Register to GreenNYC: http://www1.nyc.gov/site/greenyc/take-action/stop-junk-mail-signup.page