Make Your Catalog Shopping Greener
As the holiday shopping season creeps ever closer, many of our mailboxes will soon be stuffed with catalogs from our favorite (and sometime not so favorite) catalog companies. If you’re like me, you welcome these colorful visitors as a sane shopping alternative to the mayhem of the malls but also may worry about the overall impact on the environment. According to the Environmental Protection Agency, direct mail accounts for 2.4% of the total municipal solid waste generated annually in the US. Not as a large a number as you may have thought, but still worthy of reduction efforts. As you make your holiday shopping list, consider these suggestions to make your catalog purchasing greener.
Stop Unwanted Catalogs
Sometimes it may seem like companies delight in bombarding you with catalogs just to annoy. The truth is that catalogs are expensive to print and mail. Sending them to people that have no interest in their products is an obvious waste of money for any business that has a clue. If you’re getting catalogs from a company that doesn’t interest you, write to them directly and ask to be removed from their mailing list. If they are legitimate, they’ll have clear instructions on how to do so in their catalog and on their website. Expect them to honor your request within a reasonable amount of time (usually 6 – 8 weeks). How do you know if they are legitimate? Check their website to see if they are a member of the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) – the entity that establishes standards and practices for the direct mail and catalog industry. If so, they are obliged to honor such opt-out requests as part of their membership.
Are They Going Green?
We’re all concerned about the impact of junk mail production on the environment, as is the DMA. Last year, they adopted the “Green 15” a set of standards that members are encouraged to implement in order to reduce the environmental impact of direct mail. These measures include the increased use of certified recycled paper, reducing the size of mailings, and decreasing the amount of mailing waste by maintaining accurate lists. Check to see if you favorite catalog company is in compliance with these standards. If not, consider writing to ask them why and indicating your intent to take your business elsewhere if they don’t get on board.
Manage Your Mail In the New Year
The DMA also maintains its own mail preference service (and has for many years) which the public can access at www.dmachoice.org This enables you to manage en-masse the frequency and category of marketing mailings that you receive. Members of the DMA are obliged to remove all addresses on this list. The DMA claims that over 930 million pieces of mail have NOT been sent over the years since inception as a result of this service. Additionally, the DMA last year implemented the Commitment to Consumer Choice, a mandatory set of standards designed to give consumers more control over the marketing mail that they receive. All member companies are obliged to adopt these standards. The first part of each new year is when many financial services companies mail heavily, so now is a good time to opt-out of such mailings if you don’t want to hear from them in 2009.
Shop Smart
So is catalog shopping more environmentally friendly than the mall? I think it can be argued either way. The DMA claims that by skipping 2 shopping trips to the mall each year, Americans could eliminate 3.3 billion driving miles, reduce emissions by 3 billion pounds, and save over $490 million on gas. For a mallophobic fellow like me, that’s all the incentive I need to help save the planet and my sanity this holiday shopping season.
