Stop the insanity at the source

Our previous home had a 450 foot driveway. Taking the garbage and recycling out, as well as clearing snow, was a big job. I'd often load the recycling in the car and drop it by the road on my way out. At times it felt like a war between the catalog companies and me, with the US Postal Service as the ordinance delivery vehicle. Every day our mailbox would fill, and every two weeks I'd haul it to the curb. Most of the mail was just plain junk.

The red dots show the route I took to take out the recycling

A few years ago, we began a campaign to stop catalogs. Each time we'd receive a catalog, we'd call the customer service number and request to be removed. Each call took lots of time, and we'd often get more mail from the same company again anyway. The battle at times felt as futile as trying to stop the tides of the ocean with my hands.

My honey and I are not into buying stuff, we stick to purchasing only basic items for the most part. We do splurge on outdoor gear, and a few gadgets, but our largest expenses are usually good vacations and the lasting memories. So the catalogs were truly a waste for us to receive. Our normal buying habits are to have a need, shop for the best solution, and purchase the item. We aren't stuck to one supplier, and when the product can't be differentiated, online shopping works great. We also try to buy local, even if it costs a little more.

Think about the process of making a catalog for a moment. I'm not talking about the layout and design, think of the physical book and where it starts and ends. All paper has some amount of real wood pulp, so envision the boreal forests of Canada, and the diversity of resources this represents - many birds, and all levels of the food chain, each requiring some small aspect of this forest to survive.

By Kaibab National Forest
via Wikimedia Commons

To produce your catalog, trees are harvested. Most of the trees harvested are not selectively taken down by big men (and women) with chainsaws. Most wood harvesting is done using large impersonal machines, where the trees and everything around the trees is removed. What is left of the forest has lost all diversity, and replanting trees disregards the other vegetation required to maintain the entire ecosystem. Most birds can't survive in it.

I've seen areas of the Yukon Territories that were destroyed by fire. It is amazing to see the endless destruction of a lightning strike. But a fire leaves behind the seeds and roots of most plants that lived there. Eventually, the forest returns to what it used to look like, and the ecosystem recovers. In a lumber operation, it is like a big farm, sterile and homogeneous.

This harvested wood is then trucked to a lumber mill, where some portion of that wood is shipped to a paper company. This pulp is then processed using loads of chemicals, and lots of resources.

Recycled paper is just a big circle. You put your unwanted paper and cardboard in the recycling bin, and the town picks it up. They take it to a collection facility, where it is again trucked, this time to the processing plants to be used to make recycled paper.

The paper is then made by combining the recycled paper and the wood pulp. If you notice where paper mills are located, they are all by water sources. Making paper is very energy intensive, and the process uses loads of water. The paper is then shipped off to printing companies in huge rolls.

Then that layout thing happens. A file is sent to the printer, and millions of catalogs are printed. It is here where your name is affixed to your catalog. The catalogs are then trucked to a mail processing facility, where the catalog enters the mail distribution system. Your catalog is shipped to a regional center, then to your local post office, and then sorted and carried to your front door by your local postal carrier.

At the end of the work day, we go to the front door, get the mail, and sort it. We put the catalogs in a pile, and then we tear the cover off, carry the catalog to the back door recycle bin. Every two weeks I drag the pile of paper to the curb. (See three paragraphs up about recycling, re-read until dizzy.)

An attentive reader is presently wondering... why does he tear the covers off? Here's why. We put the covers on a stack, and every few days we login to Catalog Choice. This company provides tools on their Web site to contact catalog companies and have your name removed from their mailing list. The site provides you with a dashboard to see the status of your requests, and how many times you made the request. Within a few months of starting to use this site, our mail pile began decreasing dramatically. If a company doesn't comply after a few attempts, I then call the company and put up with the few minutes of getting my name removed. Try it, this works. It's also free, although they ask for donations so they can continue providing this service. Free and it works. Can you think of many things like that?

Catalog Choice stats

Carting your unwanted mail from the front door to the back door, so it can be reused to send you the same stuff you don't read the last time it came to your home is insane. Stop the insanity by stopping the catalogs. See the impact we've made in a few months of using the service (our numbers are the small ones at the bottom of the image).