Gail of Green Living

This past fall, we were covered in catalogs and junk mail!  My daughter told me about an app for the iPhone called Paper Karma.  It is quite simple to use; once it is set up, it takes maybe 15 seconds to put several catalogs or junk mail into its system.

You touch “Scan Mail” and it tells you to “take a photo”.  Make sure you get a clear photo of the return address on the mail you want to end.  Next time you get in Paper Karma, you can touch “Request Status” to find out if they were successful in contacting the company.  The companies sending the mail don’t really want to send mail to people who don’t read it, so they are grateful to Paper Karma, for letting them know who doesn’t want it.

As a Realtor, I have the option to send mailings of all kinds to people I know and don’t know, but I don’t send advertising by mail at all.  If I don’t like to receive junk mail, I don’t send it to anyone else.

Paper Karma says that each US household receives about 850 pieces of unwanted mail per year!  One day last fall, I promise we got 20 catalogs in one day!  I felt so sorry for our mail carrier!  And then, I thought about the trees, and the waste in ink and energy of human beings who worked to get all that junk mail to me…it’s a sad thing.

Two young techies in Seattle created Paper Karma because of their distaste of junk mail.  Thank you, guys!  You are making a difference in our world!

Tell me your solution to junk mail…