Tips for Recycling Catalogs

Nineteen billion catalogs are mailed out to American homes each year. The production of these catalogs requires 53 million trees, 53 billion gallons of water and emits 5.2 million tons of carbon dioxide. While some send catalogs to the trash instead of their recycling bins, all municipal recycling programs accept catalogs.

If there are catalogs you would like to continue receiving, recycle them with your other paper. Read the following tips first, though, to see if you can find an alternative for receiving these mailings.

Stop receiving direct mail catalogs

You can make a serious environmental impact by keeping catalogs from filling your mailbox. To take your name off of catalog mailing lists you have a few options:

• Sign up with catalogchoice.org
• Register with the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference List

If you receive duplicate mailings from companies, request that you are only sent one copy of each mailing and/or remove extra listings at your address from their mailing list. When you move, fill out the Postal Service’s National Change of Address form so catalogs are not sent to your old address.

Shop online

Most companies are online, filling their Web sites with the same products their catalogs feature. Why not shop online to save catalog paper and a few shopping trips? In 2004, 110 million shopping trips were saved and the number of miles driven dropped by almost 2 billion. This saved 35,000 tons of carbon dioxide emissions and reduced gas consumption by 75 million gallons.