How- to Eliminate Paper Clutter??

Clutter is bad for the environment, not just the earth, but your personal environment! The more cluttered your home (or office ) becomes the more difficult it can be to think about work. It is depressing and saps your energy. Piles of junk mail come into our homes daily. Piles of bills come into our homes daily. Just sorting through all the myriad of papers that the postman delivers takes the average American about 8 hours per year, or the equivalent to a good night's sleep!

It is bad for the earth because of the various processes it takes to get that paper into your trash can and ultimately to the landfill. Trees must be cut and hauled to mills. Equipment must be run, then the resulting paper must be transported numerous times before the molecules of the original tree get to your mailbox. Tons of pollutants released in the atmosphere to let you know about a carpet cleaning special you can't use because you have bamboo floors anyway.

A full 40% of the solid mass that makes up the average landfill is made of paper.Of that paper a high percentage is the junk mail that we toss out without opening it. And 100 million trees are used every year to make that unnecessary junk mail.

The best way to deal with all of that is to simply put a stop to it. There are numerous agencies you can contact to end your junk mail paper trail.

Catalog Choice

Catalog Choice is a free service company that allows you to choose which catalogs you receive in the mail. You open a free account with them and list anything you are currently getting that you would prefer not to and they send the list to the various companies to have your name removed. Simple. Effective. AND endorsed by such green companies as The National Wildlife Federation and Natural Resources Defense Counsel.

Opt-Out Prescreen- this site allows you to opt out of prescreened credit card offers and insurance offers. This is helpful to both the tendency to clutter and the tendency to have way too many credit cards.

Direct Mail- a free and easy way to get your name off of literally thousands of direct mail mailing lists.

To remove your name from national sweepstakes contact the following:

• Publishers Clearinghouse, 101 Channel Drive, Port Washington, NY 11050 Phone: (800) 645-9242
• Readers Digest, Readers Digest Road, Pleasantville, NY 10570 Phone: (800) 234-9000
• American Family Publishers, PO Box 62000, Tampa, FL 33662 Phone: (800) 237-2400

Here are some more tips for cutting the level of junk mail you receive:

• When you subscribe to magazines specify that you do not want your name sold to mailing lists
• Product warranty cards are primarily for gathering names for mailing lists. Names are worth up to 20 cents each. You are covered under the warranty whether you send the card in or not under most circumstances.
• Do not list your phone number on your voter registration form. It will often be sold to telemarketers.

In this age of the Internet it is a simple matter to go largely paperless. Bills can be paid online quickly and easily. Bank accounts can be checked, balanced, and have balance transfers made. You can contact your best friend in another state to see how she is doing. You can read newspapers online, read many of your favorite magazines online and shop an uncountable number of stores, all online.

As far as your receipts and other things you need to keep for income tax? Keep them for a short time (a couple of weeks in a temporary file) then scan them and save them to a disc. In the event you need them again you can print them out and your clutter is cut down to the disc.

By doing these things you can significantly cut back on the amount of clutter that stacks up in your home and you can make a positive impact on the environment as well.