50 Acts of Green: Day Thirty Three - Paperless Statements

Junk mail! Everywhere! Ads! Deals! Offers! Bank Statements! Insurance Statements! Investment company prospectus! (Does anyone read those things?) Magazines you never signed up for! We get a lot of mail we don't ever want or read. 

Now I am a big proponent of mail in general. I love letters. I send cards to my parishioners. I was taught to send handwritten thank you notes. Some of my parishioners (remember, Episcopal Church, "parishioners" pretty much means older than me) even find me old-school. I find that extremely ironic.) I love getting mail. When the USPS launched its "Environ-MAIL-ist" campaign in 2008, my Dad got me a t-shirt. (You can tell by the picture, it has been well loved and worn.)

However, there is a lot of mail we don't need to get. Bank statements, junk mail, and invoice/receipts are all examples of things we can cut down on in order to help cut paper waste and landfill space. Some places do recycle paper and that is extremely helpful, however, some of the paper used for advertisements are unable to be recycled because of the number of chemicals used in their creation. 

Thankfully, most banks will let you get online statements instead of paper statements. There are ways to unsubscribe from most junk mail, either by contacting the company sending the mailing directly or getting your address off corporate clearinghouse lists which are purchased to do those mailings. Taking a preventive view of junk mail instead of a reactive view can help cut down on paper waste all around.

One small act of green, paper and trees and water and landfills saved!