Green Options

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Last week, I wrote about the paper waste associated with catalogs in Catalog Waste Part 1: NOW is the Time to Cancel Unwanted Catalogs and Stop Paper Waste. If you’re receiving catalogs that you don’t want, cancel them and seriously curb your paper consumption in one easy step.

But, what if you don’t want to cancel all of the catalogs you receive? Sometimes, there are catalogs that you actually do use and want to continue receiving. Do you have to be content with receiving many, many copies of the catalog when one a year or one a season would suffice? Do you have to be content with the catalog companies using 100% virgin paper?

No, you don’t. Here are some things you can do:

• Call the companies of the catalogs that you do wish to receive and tell them that you would only like to receive a certain number of mailings a year. Not all companies are set up to do this yet, but more and more companies are offering this option. If a company comes out with an “early fall catalog” and a “fall catalog” and a “late fall catalog” (this is common with clothing companies), most likely the items inside the catalog are the same, but the picture on the cover is different and the pages have been rearranged. You can request that you be sent one catalog a season. Or, if you just want a catalog to shop from for the holidays, request only one mailing a year at the beginning of holiday season.

Actually, the best time to cancel unwanted catalogs was probably about two months ago before the first waves of attack came, but now is the time to stop future attacks. What attacks am I talking about? The dreaded onslaught of holiday catalogs. The first should arrive right after Labor Day if they haven’t started coming already. Catalog companies will continue to send several copies of the same catalog (trying to trick consumers with a different cover) until a few days before Christmas.

Then there will be, perhaps, a two week lull. After that will come the post-holiday sale catalogs. Because nobody gets everything they want for the holidays, catalog companies are kind enough to slash prices so that you can buy yourself what you really wanted. How do I know all this?

I’m a former catalog junkie.

That was before my month long campaign to rid my house of catalogs, and unfortunately, it was before Catalog Choice.

We've talked about Junk Mail before, but today we wanted to highlight a specific piece of junk mail: catalogs. These aren't actually junk, because at some point you probably requested it to arrive to your home.