Do not allow junk mail to enter your home! It seems once mail gets in the house, it takes on a life of it's own and never leaves. If you pick up your mail at a post office, throw your junk mail in their paper recyclables container. Less to take home.
If you have home delivery, keep a grocery bag (plastic or paper) for the junk mail in your garage. You can even put it in a pretty trash can or basket (found at a garage sale) so you notice it more quickly! Less clutter and greener for the environment. Oh, don't forget to occasionally, get rid of the full bag or you have only moved your clutter from in the house to the garage.
By EIW from Lancaster, PA
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English junk mail usually has a plastic window in the envelope which our recyclers don't take. I fume when I have to tear it out.
I am not sure about other countries but here in the US you can fill out a form at your local Post Office requesting 'no junkmail'.
Occasionally a piece or two will slip in but I haven't received piles of junk mail liked I used to since requesting it to stop ;-)
I would caution about not opening junk mail if you have an American Express card. I began getting magazines that I had not ordered because I didn't respond to a seperate-from-my-bill letter from AE telling me they would send it UNLESS I asked them not to.
Depending on where you live (in US or outside), there is a website that you can register for free to eliminate catalogs. I send them back, marked return to sender when I receive stuff, until they eliminate my name (I also call the toll free number). My town has a recycle program and I check the junk mail to make sure I am not going to receive unwanted items, then it goes in the recycle bin to be picked up once a week.
I shred all my junk mail and use it in the poultry pens in the nesting boxes instead of straw. Shredded paper is also great for mulch in the garden. The worms love it.
Our post office doesn't even have a wastebasket inside or out much less a recycle basket (I've never heard of such a thing in a post office anywhere that I've lived). I don't think the postmistress wants our junk mail any more than we do!
Thursday_Next, yep, I am sure you've not heard about it but try going to the actual counter of your local post office and asking how to have junk mail delivery stopped. Worked for me and over two years clean now ;-)
I have a can all ready for junk mail! It doesn't get past the living room door! I spent many hours cleaning what I thought was important papers but it was just junk mail!
It's ok to bring junk mail in your home. I have to side w/Glenn'sMom on this one. Some junk mail may be a bill, or a more important document, not necessarily junk mail. Take it in the house, scan through it, if it's in fact junk mail, tear the front (or back, whichever has your name on it) cover off and shred it if it's a magazine. Shred the rest of your junk mail, anything with your name on it. Think "Identity Theft"!
You are right. Just more clutter. Open it outside and pitch it.
I think the safe thing to do is to open it and verify that it is junk mail before blindly throwing it away. You don't know how it could affect you if you do not at least look at it.
We like to look for postage-paid envelopes. Then we will try to stuff as much of what they sent us inside that envelope and send it back to them. Sometimes mail from other sources get put in there too. There is a difference of opinion on whether or not to not include personal information. If they know who sent it back, maybe they will stop sending it. I like to think that we are helping the post office stay open by using these companies marketing money.
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