Junk mail, phone books, and even your statements that are mailed to you use a lot of paper.  And most of those things most people do not look at, read, or use.  You can “opt-out” of many mailings which will greatly reduce your impact on the environment.

Fact: 17 million catalogs are mailed every year.  This causes 62 million trees and 25 billion gallons of water to be used to produce a typical year’s worth of junk mail.  That’s over 80 pounds per household, or close to a tree’s worth.

Fact: Phone books make for about 660,000 tons of trash every year.

Tips:

– Visit www.yellowpagesgoesgreen.com to enter your information and get your name off the mailing list.

– Ask to “please remove my name from the mailing list” to cut down on junk mail.

– Save paper, postage, and gas by paying your bills online – sometimes you get a discount on your bill too!

– Save paper by requesting to get your statements online rather than through the mail.

– Please visit www.greendimes.com to find out how you can completely get rid of your junk mail!  There are two service plans offered.

– A carbon footprint is a measure of the impact our activities have on the environment and climate change.  It relates to the amount of greenhouse gases produced in our day-to-day lives through burning fossil fuels for electricity, heating, and transportation, etc.  The carbon footprint is a measurement of all greenhouse gases we individually produce and has units of tonnes (or kg) of carbon dioxide equivalent.  To learn how to measure your carbon footprint and how to off-set it, please go to www.carbonfootprint.com.