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RETURN TO WASTER Junk Mail Stamps at Etsy

May 21, 2008 By Matt

12 Comments

The “RETURN TO WASTER” Stamps are available from this Etsy Seller.

It takes 100 Million (100,000,000) trees to create the junk mail that is sent out in one year. It takes 28 billion gallons of water to make this junk mail and the average person wastes 70 hours a year dealing with junk mail…. so in other words… JUNK MAIL IS BAD. There are several services available to help you reduce the amount of junk mail you receive. For example, you can register with the Direct Marketing Associations “do-not-mail list” and be careful where you fill out your name and address. Even if you follow all the steps you will most likely still receive some (hopefully less) junk mail, so what do you do with it? Well recycle it is the obvious answer, but I found this “Return To Waster” stamp idea at the ToyBox that I thought was interesting. In the post they advocate sending it back to the sender with the following message stamped on it…

“RETURN TO WASTER, You are contributing to the 100 million trees wasted in creating junk mail”.

A great local stamp shop here in NH run by a woman named Karen sells them (get them from her on Etsy). They are a very small business but have an online store and they are going to sell the stamps at a discounted price so you will be able to buy one of your own for $11. That includes the 4″ x 1″ hand made wooden rubber stamp and a red ink pad. If you already have your own ink pad you can buy just the stamp for $7!

Here is what the stamp says:

I did some research at the Post Office and found that for Bulk Mail (the things addressed to “RESIDENT”) if you stamp it and return it the Post Office just ends up recycling it, unless the marketer paid a little extra for a forwarding or return service which they do to make sure their lists are accurate and up to date. First class mail which a lot of credit card applications and other letters use will be returned to the sender. I still think this is a great idea and I encourage everyone to sign up for the do-not-mail lists and then stamp and return everything that still slips through.

Here are some links to info on reducing your Junk mail:

Ecocycle.org - Stop the Junk Mail Monster
PrivacyRights.org - Reducing Junk Mail
41Pounds.org

12 Comments, Comment or Ping

Brian

Sold out on Etsy as of 5/21/08.

May 21st, 2008
admin

She’s making more. Just send her a message through Etsy or her website and let her know you want one. I check with her tomorrow to make sure she will restock the Etsy store.

May 21st, 2008
Whatever

Won’t this just cause the post office to burn tons of extra fuel hauling this junk back?

May 21st, 2008
admin

Yes it will. If you read the original post you’ll see that we acknowledge this, but the point is not to lower your carbon footprint by sending the mail back, it is to make a statement, raise awareness and hopefully change the behavior of the marketing companies from sending so much wasteful unsolicited mail, which overtime will be a huge impact for the environment.

May 22nd, 2008
fungis

The problem is not “junk mail” The problem is the source of fiber used to make paper. It used to be that Hemp was a major resource that was used to make paper. If we were to return to this much better source for paper we would stop killing trees and be creating oxygen and taking carbon out of our atmosphere. I work in a printing shop and as much as I hate to think about how many trees die, one its my job and it puts food on my families table as well as many others in the world and two its not my fault that my government is retarded and wont allow cultivation of a benign plant which has many, many, many uses. be green grow green

May 22nd, 2008
Jen

Thanks for posting — this is really intriguing. (Love the blog!)

May 22nd, 2008
Hyla Waldron

Thank you! I am definitely picking one of these up next pay day! Great idea!

Hyla

May 22nd, 2008
Uncle B

Frugal Greener that I am, I shred every damn piece of junkmail I get and compost it for my garden. I now have a lot of beautiful, free, topsoil that produces all kinds of food for me and mine! I am not guilty of soliciting junkmail for this purpose, but my vengeful side has considered it, just in passing mind you! My buddy starts all his wood fires with junkmail, so it does have value to practical folk!

May 22nd, 2008
ADMIN

I found this post over at “The Earth is Not a Trash Can” explaining that credit card companies check your credit your credit report before sending you credit card offers. The post explains how to contact the credit reporting agencies to make sure when credit card companies pre-screen you for offers, they see a “No Thank You” for solicitations on your report…

http://planettrash.wordpress.com/2008/02/14/how-to-stop-credit-card-solicitations/

May 27th, 2008
noIMPACT

This is a great idea! Unfortunately business can’t be expected to do things out of goodness, they need economic stimuli. By sending junk mail back (particularly the 1st class stuff like the credit card apps that they get charged for) hopefully we can make it costly for them to snail mail spam us and then they might stop.

May 27th, 2008