One more post before I go to bed …

I have a confession: I’m an evil marketer. By night I may be a wanna-be champion of the environment, but by day, I help clutter up Americans’ mailboxes with junk mail. Yup, a big chunk of my 9-5 is spent in the environmentally un-friendly world of direct marketing. To be perfectly honest, the work itself can be quite fascinating, but in the end, sometimes it feels like I might as well drive a gas-guzzling Hummer because I’m contributing to the destruction of the Earth that much more. (Maybe this is one reason why I’m trying to be so green. GUILT.)

Anywhoo, so to help alleviate some of this guilt, I’d like to talk a little bit about GreenDimes (read more here and here). These guys and gals not only help keep junk mail from entering your mailbox, but they also plant a tree for each month you’re a member. Sounds good, yeah? Especially with the stats offered on their site:

• 100 million trees are chopped down every year for junk mail sent to American homes
• 28 billion (that’s 28 with 9 zeros) gallons of water are needed to make all the paper used for junk mail
• Paper makes up a third of the 235 million tons of waste Americans send to landfills each year
• The typical American household receives about 70 pounds of junk mail a year
• The amount of junk mail sent grows by 3 billion pieces a year

Obviously there’s the DIY route (the green LA girl method), but what I like about GreenDimes’ service is that while they’re doing the dirty work for you, you’re still (kind of) in control. One reason why I haven’t personally added my name to the DMA’s suppression list is because there are some pieces of mail I don’t mind receiving. With GreenDimes, they claim that subscribers can still specify which catalogs they wish to continue receiving.

Before jumping the gun on GreenDimes, I’d like to do a bit more investigating. There’s this bit on their web site that states:

We stop unsolicited credit card and insurance offers, and mail sent using lists provided by the DMA, as well as the catalogs that you specifically select to stop.

Um. As a direct mail marketer myself, I know that the DMA does not provide lists for sending mail. They provide a suppression list which members of the DMA are required to use to remove names from their mailing lists. Using this list to mail people means you’re mailing the people who specifically said DO NOT MAIL ME. In fact, the DMA clearly states:

Please note that DMA does not provide marketers with consumer mailing lists or do consumer mailings.

So I’m a bit confused by what GreenDimes means when they say they stop mail sent using lists provided by the DMA. The DMA does provide a list of direct mail companies who offer Do Not Share services, so perhaps GreenDimes was referring to that list??

Filed by Maria in environment, organizations