More than EnviroStats!

Catalog Choice seems like a great website to be able to opt out of catalogs, and at this time, I’d recommend any site that can do this successfully.

According to The Paper Planet, they have 86,146 members having opted out of 515,128 catalogs as of Oct 31 2007, which is fantastic because that’s a lot of paper, if you think about it. However, to put things into perspective, they say 19 billion catalogs are sent out every year in the US so that’s only about 0.0005 billion of 19 billion or 0.0026%. Mind you, Catalog Choice did not list their source whereas I have one in Stat 0016, with source, at 9.07 billion magazines and periodicals annually weighing 1.83 megatonnes (4.02 billion pounds) that’s less than half their value. The discrepancy is why I did not post those other statistics from the source sites in the headline as they did not cite a source and they are not originating research sources themselves. Still, that would only leave magazines saved rate at about 0.006% using my figures (take your pick for impact context, but I’d just stay with the absolute number cause that’s impressive on its own as it will grow).

Regardless of whichever value you embrace, though, the fact is while the action each of us takes will prevent a fair amount of paper, emissions, chemicals and such from being used, you can see the collective, while impressive, is still barely a scratch on the surface of things, and I really mean that. But I’m not trying to be negative here. I love this idea and wish I had one in Canada. I just think we could do much better than 0.00-something-percent so let’s go and sign up, people, if you live in the US! That’s why I’m posting this impromptu!

It should be pointed out you could join to eliminate catalogs you don’t want and still get the ones you do want because the majority of catalogs are sent without our initial consent, like if you buy something and your supplier get your info and just send a catalog some time. I’m not against people getting some catalogs to enjoy and enhance their lives, I’m just against the useless waste.

Now, who wants to start such a thing for Canada or other parts of the world, if they don’t exist already? If they do, please post a comment and alert myself and other readers to it. Thank you.

Minh Tan
Envirostats author