news-record.com

Aside from my fairly regular eBay purchases and a few select magazine subscriptions, I used to love checking the mail everyday for newsletters, notes from friends, and invitations to great gatherings but with email, Evite and RSS feeds, my mail isn't that exciting anymore.

Instead there are times when I have found myself grumbling over the one or two pieces of unwanted junk or direct mail, which immediately is transferred straight into my recycle bin.

I've spent some time to unsubscribe from these catalogs and offers but it takes a while and just when I've thinned out, somehow I'm on another list. However, there is hope out there to get off these lists and reduce the unwanted mail you receive.

Directmail.com - register at no cost here to get your name taken off direct mail lists. You do have the flexibility to request removal of your name from everything or select by category. While DirectMail.com primarily serves to provide mailing lists to companies, it stresses that as direct marketers, they know their clients don't want to waste money sending mail to people who don't want to receive it. And with the average person receiving over 500 pieces of junk or unwanted mail each year, that's a lot of trees being wasted, not to mention marketing dollars.

Great things are going on at Catalog Choice, a sponsored project by the Ecology Center and endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation. Here you can request free removal from specific catalogs that participate with their program as well as invite friends to do the same. If a company does not participate, Catalog Choice will contact them on your behalf to request removal.

And finally for those phone books - over 500 million printed every year and 700,000 tons thrown out....visit Yellow Page Goes Green, an organization working to educate consumers and promote the green movement to eliminate the unsolicited delivery of Yellow and White Pages books. Submit your name and they will notify your local phone company to "cease and desist" from future deliveries.

So do it now and make room in your mailbox, your life and the environment for the things that really matter. (And while we're at it, here's the National Do Not Call Registry to remove you from those unsolicited telemarketing calls too).

Jeanne Blaisdell lives in Greensboro with her husband, Tom and two children and has recently launched TheGreenSamaritan.com. You can follow her on Twitter here.