Image: donotmail.org

Image: donotmail.org

Just about five years after the opening of the Do Not Call Registry, ForestEthics has signed, sealed, and delivered on a campaign for a Do Not Mail Registry, aimed at eliminating that other annoying way marketers try to reach their grubby little hands into our personal lives: junk mail.

According to ForestEthics, some 100 billion pieces of junk mail are delivered each year (800+ pieces per household!), and junk mail in the U.S. alone accounts for one-third of all the mail delivered in the world.

Grist thanks its sponsors. Become one.

If those stats don’t get you burning to write a strongly worded letter, perhaps this will:

  • Manufacturing the 6.5 million tons of paper for that junk mail produces more greenhouse-gas emissions than 3.7 million cars.
  • More than 100 million trees — many of them from endangered forests — are cut down to produce that paper each year.

Read more about the Do Not Mail campaign, and join the crowd of 20,000+ who have already given the petition a stamp of approval.