Catalog Choice: Stop Those Endless Catalogs
by Justin Thomas, Virginia on 11. 2.07
Looking for an easy way to put a stop to those unwanted catalogs that fill up your mailbox? Catalog Choice is a free service that allows you to opt-out of catalogs easily. Via the web site, you can select the catalogs you no longer wish to receive (there are hundreds of common catalogs listed). I found this service to be quite easy to use.
As of October 31st, the Catalog Choice community is 86,146 persons strong, having opted out of 515,128 catalogs.
Catalog Choice was created by the Ecology Center and it is endorsed by the National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council. There are 19 billion catalogs mailed every year in the US.
:: Catalog Choice via Paper Planet
What i would prefer more than a site that lets you opt out of paper based catalogues, is to opt out of paper catalogues AND opt in for them in PDF form to be emailed to you. This would still give you the information contained in them, but would cut down:
1. tree destruction due to paper usage
2. chemicals used for printing 1000s of catalogues
3. would increase the profits of the companies sending catalogues as distribution costs would be far higher!
4. it would allow sorting of what catalogues you wanted electronically.
Having a site that lets you opt in to catalogues like this would be fantastic for the majority of the western world, and would let you put a simple "no adveritsing material" sticker on your letterbox - i'd much prefer that to having paper based advertising!
Heck if you wanted you could also have the option for people to "order a paper based catalogue" that would post it out to you for a small fee (for those of you who are adicted to Victoria Secret catalogues) which would be addressed in an envelope;) so you wouldn't have to explain it to your wife lol.
American retailers mailed out about 9.07 billion magazines and periodicals in the 2005 fiscal year, weighing a total of 1.83 megatonnes in weight.
- The Potential for Greater Fiber Recovery from Magazines, Catalogs and Direct Mail 2006, by SLS Consulting for Direct Marketing Association, Inc.
http://envirostats.info/2007/05/18/0016/
I have gone to catalog choice to opt out of numerous catalogs BUT IT DOES NO GOOD--I have as many catalogs as ever coming from these companies.