Not exactly news or debate, but not really a discussion intended for GD either.
Been looking into ways to easily thin out junk mail and credit card offers, etc. The wife found a service that seems pretty good.

http://www.41pounds.org

They will stop most of your junk mail, donate to a lot of environmental causes, and plant new trees. For about $40 they will work to stop your junk for 5 years.

Has anyone used this or similar service before? Seems like a reasonable price.

This is my real social security number!

in Holland when you put this sticker on your mailbox: the mail person is not allowed to put anything in your mailbox that isn't directly addressed to you. Plus the fact that as far as i know credit card offers by mail are nonexistent since the majority of Dutch people don't even have any credit cards.

Now here in the US i get about 3 credit card offers a day, i get asked ever other day by flyer to join the marines and get a shitload of spam from stores i wouldn't even want to be caught dead in. It's a huge waste of paper and when i'm expecting actual mail like a package or something they won't deliver it because my mailbox is full with crap i never asked for. wtf?

so let's all move to holland

The best thing to do is just mail random crap back to them with the business reply envelopes they send you.

Yeah, I've done that before

I like mailing random fast food applications in those.

You're the reason it costs 41 cents to send a letter nowadays.

damn, that's cheap

We had this one at Valentine's Day, cono.

I thought the business gets billed for the business reply mail...

I have a plan for my junk mail. I collect it in an old steel drum in my backyard, and when it gets full, I have a bonfire party.

Our town recycling service takes junk mail, so I don't really care. I just toss it into the bin.

Right. But I'm looking for a better way to reduce. So stopping it before it even happens is what I'd like to do.

This site has a free kit you can use:
http://www.stopjunkmail.org/

I started my crusade around 5 years ago and now I'm hardly ever getting any junk mail.

I started off by following the advice of this website (which doesn't look to be active anymore) because I didn't have a clue where to start or what to do. I started calling the companies that were sending me the junk and telling them to take me off of their mailing lists and to not give my info to any other company. Around this same time I also sent my info to the DMA. Then I talked to the mailman that loads up the mail boxes where I live (kinda like these) and told him I didn't want that crap that they put in your box every Wednesday. He put a business card sized note in my mailbox that said "no junk mail" and that was taken care of. I love hi-tech solutions like that.

I also put my telephone number on the national do not call registry. I'm not sure if it has anything to do with junk mail, but it can't hurt. I wouldn't be surprised if companies do cross-referencing with telephone number databases to get more addresses to send out more junk mail. While we're talking about phone numbers: Some places ask for your phone number when you check out and chances are they get your address from that to send you junk. I don't want them to have it and they don't need it so they ain't gettin' it, regardless of what they're doing with it.

I've gotten maybe 2 credit card offers in 10 years. I'm not exactly sure why but I'm fine with it

In the past year or two, I've been getting a lot of junk that is not addressed to me, but does have my specific address. So instead of my name it will say "Resident" or "Consumer." Those are difficult to stop because the companies don't have you in their database, or so I was told by Chase bank when I called them to have them stop sending me their junk. I'm not totally buying that though.

If you buy anything online, you have to call that company later that day (if you bought it early) or the very next day and let them know you don't want their catalogs and to not give out your info. They're pretty quick about sending it to you so you have to be quick to tell them you don't want it. It's rare for me to go through an internet purchase and see a check box that gives you the chance to opt-out of getting a catalog.

So I really haven't put that much "work" into it per se, it's just a phone call every now and then, and maybe an internet search to find that number. It shouldn't be that hard for people to do themselves without spending any money. I might have paid $10 for getting my name on the DMA's list, but I don't remember.

That is fucking evil. I LOVE it!!

I have a cinder block I need to dispose of. Now I know what to do with it!