Do Not Mail

I just got word about the groundbreaking Do Not Mail initiative and wanted to share.

What do Adrian Grenier, Leonardo DiCaprio, Darryl Hannah, Lawrence Bender, Anna Getty, Ed Begley, Jr. and Paul Hawken have in common? 

Besides being eco-conscious celebrities, they have all signed the petition to create a national Do Not Mail registry. It would be similar to the historic Do Not Call registry which just celebrated its 5-year anniversary. Imagine being able to opt-out of junk mail. It is within our grasp thanks to a bold initiative launched today by ForestEthics.

A national Do Not Mail registry would give us control over our mailboxes. It would protect our privacy and lessen identity theft. It would save forests that absorb carbon dioxide and provide clean water to the world. And it would end one of the most annoying things around - junk mail.

Do Not Mail Campaign by ForestEthics

Launched: March 11, 2008

Signed By:
Adrian Grenier, Darryl Hannah, Alicia Silverstone, Jackson Browne, Anna Getty, Aaron Douglas, Paul Hawken, Ed Begley, Jr.

Join over 18,000 others and sign the Do Not Mail petition.

Junk mail is called junk for a reason. Americans receive 100 billion pieces of junk mail per year. 44% goes straight to a landfill unopened. These piles of credit card offers, coupons, ads, and catalogs consume more than 100 million trees and produce global warming emissions equivalent to 3.7 million cars.

I have tried everything to get rid of junk mail. Signed up for OptOutPrescreen, called catalog companies to unsubscribe, switched to electronic bill pay, wrote Return To Sender, and more. And the junk mail still keeps coming. Sometimes I feel like Will Ferrell in his Junk Mail PSA made for Live Earth.

Where does the paper come from? The irreplaceable Canadian Boreal Forest which stores more carbon than any other ecosystem on earth. Stored carbon dioxide equals less global warming. Yet, the Boreal Forest is still logged at a rate of 2 acres a minute 24 hours a day to produce junk mail, catalogs, and other paper products. This gives a whole new meaning to the term, junk in the trunk. It is more like junk from the trunk.

In an exciting newsflash, it was just discovered that old growth forests store even more carbon than originally thought. Read the pioneering Giving Trees article.

"Junk mail is more than an annoying waste of time. It's a waste of our environment," said Entourage star Adrian Grenier and Peter Glatzer, co-founders of The Green Life. "Joining ForestEthics Do Not Mail campaign is a great, easy way to stop the waste."

Let’s stop the junk mail madness, stop the waste, stop the deforestation, and stop climate change. Let’s sing the Elvis Presley song Return To Sender and take back our mailboxes. www.donotmail.org

About ForestEthics:
The nonprofit ForestEthics recognizes that individual people can create positive environmental change, and so can corporations. Armed with this unique philosophy, the organization has transformed the environmental practices of Fortune 500 companies including Staples, Home Depot, Dell, Williams-Sonoma, and Victoria Secret and has protected more than 12 million acres of endangered forests.  www.forestethics.org