While I will likely be doing a bit of shopping and donating this holiday season, I don't need a full recycling box to remind me to do so. :)
To stop the madness, you can always call or email each company directly. However, this can take a lot of time to track down each company.
I'm loving a site called Catalog Choice to opt out of paper mailings. This is a free service. Per their FAQ, they have over 9000 companies listed. Most of them you can fill out a quick form on their own website to opt out. For some, they redirect you to the company's website to their own form or email address (they've already done the Google legwork for you!). All of your history is tracked in a personal dashboard for reference. Catalog Choice is non-profit reducing mail for environmental purposes, so they communicate their environmental wins. If this screenshot is too small for your device, a couple impressive numbers are 500K mature trees saved and 3.6B gallons of water saved.
Another service is DMA Choice. This service costs $2 for 10 years. DMA is the Data and Marketers Association and has about 3600 members that you can opt out of mailings from. In addition to catalogs, they also have magazine offers and other categories of mailings. A couple cool things: they allow you to opt out in bulk. If you are getting mailings from specific companies you've done business with previously, you still need to remove yourself from that business itself, but this removes you from mailing lists that these direct marketing companies purchase. Direct Choice also lets you register deceased relatives. While a bit morbid, it's nice to be able to stop receiving ironic insurance offers for someone who can no longer benefit.
If you're starting to think about New Year's resolutions and getting 2018 off to a good start, take a half hour and make junk mail a thing of the past! :)
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