Progressive Wednesday

I See Trees of Green: Join

April 18th, 2007 by Progressive Wednesday

Join:

We’ve talked about it before. Let’s talk about it again. I’m betting, if you’re anything like me, you’ve resigned yourself to junk mail and at the same time despise it: Pizza Hut coupons and gigantic JC Penny catalogues, flyers about flyers and a plethora of offers for magazines you’d never read (Ferrets USA, Wooden Boat Magazine, Goat Magazine, American Baby, American Cowboy, and, of course, The New Yorker.) Stacked up, you’re convinced all this postal white-noise would reach the hole in the damned ozone.

Well, here’s your answer: Green Dimes. Green Dimes is a cheap-o service that gets your name and address off junk-mail lists. You read that right: no more freaking, good-for-nothing, fills-up-my-trash, and clogs-my-shredder junk mail. By stopping the annoyance that is a mailbox full of useless crap, you in turn save, quite literally, forests full of trees. There is a hitch, though: it costs you one dime each day. That’s it: 365 FDR heads. (Sorry, I made it sound a hell of a lot more morbid than it is.) That’s 36 smackers a year. That’s about four trips to movies you regret seeing in the first place (see our TGIF Movie Reviews for some friendly advice).

But Green Dimes (you can read more about Green Dimes and similar services in this Newsweek article) is more than a junk-mail prevention service: they’re true conservationists. In association with Trees for the Future, Green Dimes “[sponsors] tree planting on behalf of [its] members.”

So let’s break this down old school:

1. Save some trees.
2. Plant some trees.
3. Spend next to nothing.
4. Stop getting the bane that is junk mail.

Another fantastic service is 41 Pounds, which does almost the same thing as Green Dimes, except half of their profits go to nonprofit organizations. An additional benefit of 41 Pounds is that they promise to keep 80% to 95% of your bulk mail away for 5 years.

Whichever one you go with, go with one: your mailbox will thank you. (Please note: your mailbox is an inanimate object and will not in fact thank you; we’re not all-out looney, okay?)