Environment, Organics, Fair Trade & Recycling at Big Green Purse: Junk Mail

Today is America #RecyclesDay, a national event designed to encourage you, me and millions of other Americans, businesses, governments, and institutions to throwaway less trash and recycle more.

Here's my Top 10 "No Brainer" List of what you should be recycling today - and every day. I call them "no brainers" because they're relatively easy to do in many communities, because it doesn't cost you anything to do them, and because they have a big environmental impact.

1. Newspapers and magazines (though to reduce how much you need to recycle, cancel subscriptions to magazines you don't read, and read newspapers and magazines online when possible)

2. Junk mail, office paper, and catalogs (here's how to reduce the amount of junk mail you get in the first place; reduce office paper waste by printing on both sides, circulating documents electronically rather than on hard copy, and using software to reduce excess paper use; here's how to cut catalog overload)

3. Paper bags and packaging from the grocery store, hardware store, or department store (reduce paper packaging waste by using reusable shopping bags.)

4. Plastic bags (if your community recycling program won't take them, most grocery stores that still use them now take them back. Avoid them in the first place by using reusable bags.)

5. Plastic milk jugs (choose paper cartons instead if those are easier to recycle where you live.)

6. Plastic juice and beverage bottles (choose glass or cans if those are easier to recycle where you live.)

7. Electronics, including computers, fax machines, and especially cell phones (Best Buy, Office Depot and Staples will recycle your electronics for you; most phone companies will take your old phone and recycle it.)

8. Aluminum cans (pretty much all aluminum cans can be recycled, including those that contained soda pop, alcoholic beverages, and energy drinks.)

9. Clothing (recycle your clothes by donating to charity, selling at thrift shops, giving to neighbors and friends, or repurposing them as rags and even pillow-stuffings; send your shoes to SolesforSouls.org)

10. Food (recycle food waste into compost, to use in fertilizing vegetable and flower beds, trees and bushes)

Want More Ideas?

Top Ten Ways to Control Catalog Overload

Recycling Your Computer Just Got Easier

How to Recycle CFLs

Can You Recycle Your Car?

America Recycles Day

What else do you recycle?

During the post-holiday season, retail catalogs begin swamping mailboxes as the stores where you shopped add your address to their mailing lists. The huge amount of paper and ink used to produce catalogs is an environmental no-no. Producing all these catalogs is a big waste of energy and resources, especially because most of the products and information can be found on the retailers' websites.

Put a stop to the catalog deluge before it begins by refusing to provide your address or phone number when you shop. If you place your order by phone, tell the operator to keep your name off the company's mailed catalog lists. (image source)

If catalogs are still piling up at your house, here's how you can stem the paper tide:

1) Call the 1-800 number provided in the catalog and ask the operator to remove your name from the company's lists.

2) Sign up for free with Catalogchoice.org and cancel catalogs you no longer wish to receive.

3) Pay $19.95 and Stopthejunkmail.com will let you choose which catalogs you wish to keep; the group will contact the others repeatedly until they have removed you from their lists.

4) Stop 85-90% of all unwanted catalogs and junk mail for 5 years for $41 at 41pounds.org.

For more ways to reduce catalog clutter, see all ten tips here.

Forest Ethics calls junk mail an 'environmental crisis.' You can sign their petition to end junk mail here.