San Jose Mercury News -- Blizzard of catalogs stuff America's mailboxes: Merry mail or holiday headache?
,November 19th, 2009
Last year, an estimated 17 billion catalogs were sent to U.S. households. That's about 56, for every man, woman and child.
Now, a growing chorus of environmental groups is sounding the alarm that the Yuletide avalanche may not be good, for goodness sake, for the planet. Some are seeking a national "Do Not Mail'' registry, modeled on the "Do Not Call'' list that Congress set up in 2003 to control telemarketers. They say the public should also have an enforceable, easy way to block junk mail.
"I've had people tell me it's as if their house is being invaded by garbage,." said Will Craven, a spokesman for Forest Ethics, a San Francisco environmental group. "We may have a lot of hard choices ahead of us in terms of climate change and the environment. Getting rid of junk mail isn't one of them. "It's one of the easy ones."