In the days of our fore fathers, the word “consumption” was frowned upon, and to this day continues to be in other parts of the world. The word in itself has been notoriously known for the connotation of being related with disease and destruction. But, in our times it is the foundation of describing our culture as a whole. We are a nation of consumers, not that we should be ashamed of that label necessarily, but I believe that, we as a largest nation of consumers should have a responsibility to the other side of us whom we seem to neglect, the rest of the world. We also have, or at least should have, a responsibility to ourselves. We must learn to think for ourselves, by questioning the things which we thought we knew. It is essential that we do, and participate within the realm of democracy, or else we face the consequences of letting the world of media and advertising create our reality for us. I don’t know about you, but I certainly don’t want to live in a world like that. If we don’t have control over our own lives then who does? It hurts me to believe that the people in positions of power are locked within the grasp of the tentacles of self interest, so I understand that unless we take action our situations will only continue to worsen. I think it seems to be evident, what will happen if we continue down the road of over-consumption, which is only over the polluted horizon. So I need say no more about it. What we do need is to focus on the goals that we can achieve, for this reason I propose a step which would bring us closer to achieving our overall goal, a state of complete sustainability throughout our journey here on earth.

One step in becoming closer to a responsible global consumer would be to stop the majority of household waste, which consists mostly of unsolicited mail or more commonly “junk mail”. The name says it all. The average American household receives about 40 lbs of unsolicited mail a year, which is more than a whole tree’s worth per household (ecofuture.com). This is why I propose that we should stop specific types of unwanted paper mail completely. Did you know that over 100 million trees are used for unsolicited mail (native forest network)? That’s equivalent of deforesting the Rocky Mountain National Park, every four months (native forest network)! And in a study done by ecofuture.com more than half of that unsolicited mail is discarded unread or unopened, in which the response rate is less than 2% anyways. Not to mention the paper used for advertising is extremely difficult to recycle, and in some cases cant even be reused, because of the heavy concentrations of metals used in the ink (ecofuture.com). The environmental costs in terms of ink, energy to produce, deliver, recycle, recycling inefficiencies, and loss of forest, to create the high quality glossy paper which most junk mail uses is enormous. We as a nation use 320 million tax dollars to dispose of this junk mail and use 550 million dollars to transport the junk mail through out postal system (ecofuture.com), that’s some expensive junk!

Sometimes it seems that nowhere is safe from these advertisers and marketers, not even in the comfort of our own homes. But, where there is a will there is a way. There is a way to drastically reduce the amount junk mail that arrives to our homes. I say “reduce” because the problem with junk mail is that, most companies with HUGE mailing list tend to sell information to each other in order to establish a bigger mailing list. Reducing the amount of junk mail we receive, can be a strenuous task because we tend to be on multiple mailing list. And retracing our steps can be a tedious task. For this reason there are many organizations dedicated to finding where you have been listed and removing you from that list, for a low price. And as far as protecting yourself in the future, a federal law passed in 2000 says that you have the right to tell companies not to sell your name. So it is highly recommended that we exercise our right between the organizations we come in contact with on a daily basis. Most senders of unsolicited junk mail get your name and address from one of three sources: Abacus Catalog Alliance (catalogs), Direct Marketing Association (fliers, brochures, etc.), or the credit bureaus (credit card and insurance offers), says Paul Stephens, a policy analyst with Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, a consumer advocacy group. If you do nothing else, take the time to wipe your name from these lists. "That'll get rid of most of your junk mail," he says.

SOURCES

"Do it yourself: stop junk mail, email and phone calls". www.obviously.com/junkmail 07/19/07.
"Junk mail, how did they get my address?" www.privacyrights.org 07/19/07.
 "How to get rid of junk mail, spam, and telemarketers". www.ecofuture.org 07/18/09.
"Reducing Junk mail". www.newamericandream.org 07/20/07.
"Smart Money; stopping junk mail is easy and good for the environment". www.smartmoney.com 07/22/09