Getting Rid Of Junk Mail

I'm not talking about junk email. Those are usually easy to handle, having a handy little "Unsubscribe" link in any issue. I'm talking about real junk mail. The kind that piles up in your mail box, necessitates about 80% of your paper recycling, generates tons of environmental tolls, and is just, generally, a huge pain.

This is my journey on getting rid of it. (Watch this page for continuous updates).

July 22, 2014
As I am tidying my desk of clutter, a Bed Bath & Beyond coupon I haven't thrown out yet jumps out at me. As one of the companies I get most junk mail from, I decide enough is enough. I unsubscribe the 4 different names of previous tenants I have been receiving mail for, using the URL they so conveniently provided on the coupon. From there, I easily get to the form to unsubscribe from direct mail: Bed Bath and Beyond: Unsubscribe from Direct Mail.
Thank you Bed Bath & Beyond for making this process so easy!

* Note: I know the tenant right before me was in my apartment for 4 years. I am receiving not only her junk mail but also the mail from 3 previous tenants before her. How long has this been going on?? Does this not bother people?

July 23, 2014
There are 11 new pieces of junk mail today. Normally, these go straight to the recycle container conveniently located right next to my building's mailboxes. Today, I meticulously sift through them, hoping for similarly useful information as with BB&B. Sadly, only two of them identify where I might possibly be able to get rid of them: One of the two Safeway coupons and a random home improvement brochure. The distributor is listed as RedPlum. This is their unsubscribe link: https://www.redplum.com/tools/redplum-postal-addremove.html

Some more poking around online, out of frustration for not finding other useful information on the other 9 mailings yielded this useful link:
http://stopjunkmail.org/sample/kit.pdf
I might give this a try another day - I've let junk mail consume too much of my time today already.

July 29, 2014
I'm starting to think all junk mail arrives on the same day. That makes my life easier though since I can commit to a few minutes of trying to get rid of it every week! Lots of the same stuff as last week that has no obvious way to get rid of it.

One blue Valpak envelope with a whole stack of coupons in it. This one was easy to find and stop:
http://www.coxtarget.com/mailsuppression/s/DisplayMailSuppressionForm

I found the following for Sur La Table:
If you wish to no longer receive the Sur La Table catalog, please send us an email or call our Customer Service Center at 1-800-243-0852. Our representatives are available to answer your emails or calls from 8am-midnight EST M-F and 10am-10pm EST Sat and Sun.
http://www.surlatable.com/common/custFrequentlyAskedQuestions.jsp#Cat7Quest4

Calling took less than a minute and was no hassle, contrary to what I had feared. Thanks!

For United MileagePlus mail I needed to log in to my account, but here is where I could unsubscribe from direct mail: https://www.united.com/web/en-US/apps/account/address/addressPrivacy.aspx


I also took a minute to do step 1 of the steps outlined in http://stopjunkmail.org/sample/kit.pdf:

1.  www.dmachoice.org
2. Credit Card offers
3. Sweepstakes
4. ValPak coupons (did online already!)
5. Advo / Valassis www.advo.com/consumersupport 
6. Harte Hanks direct marketing www.pennysaverusa.com/contactus
7. CatalogChoice.org

This took a step or two, since you have to register, but this ultimately it's worth the satisfaction of knowing you've been taking off the mailing list of a company that holds the key to some 3600 company's junk mail!

from www.dmachoice.org

May 12, 2015
It's pretty unclear how much my junk mail weeding has actually helped. I continued to get the same stack of local offers every Tuesday, although I do in fact no longer receive 

• Bed, Bath & Beyond
• Safeway
• Sur La Table
• United 
• Valpak

mail. Trying to restart this effort, I am trying to target the worst offender of junk mail: The weekly pack of irrelevant coupons and catalogues that seem to be delivered to every mailbox in town, every Tuesday. Thinking it might be a local thing (most ads are for local businesses), I checked out my city's website: https://www.cityofpaloalto.org/gov/depts/pwd/zerowaste/resources/junkmail.asp
They reconfirm many of the same tips as stopjunkmail.org, so I am biting the bullet and signing up for CatalogChoice.org. I have an account now, and will add businesses as I get their spam mail...

May 14, 2015
So far, my CatalogChoice experience has been a mixed bag. Unsubscribing from FrontGate was as easy as entering the information on the mailing label and done (whether or not it was effective we shall see as time goes on). However trying to unsubscribe from AAA Auto Insurance was basically impossible: They asked me to call AAA, but there was no phone number listed and I was unable to find it easily online. As for LifeLock they also required me to make a phone call, but they did list the number and calling took only a minute or two.

• FrontGate
• AAA Auto Insurance (no phone nr provided): I called Member Services at 800-922-8228 (choices 2 and 3 in the teleprompt) and asked for them to remove my address. It took about 5-10min and they said it would take 30 days to remove my address.
• LifeLock: Call 1-800-543-3562, it will take about 5 business days for the request to go in.