A picture posted on Reddit's r/Anticonsumption community, which has 639,000 members, shows a glimpse of the average American's daily junk mail.
The picture shows a stack of papers and open envelopes on a counter, which the original poster described as "my daily stack of junk mail."
"This kind [of] spam and waste should be illegal," the Redditor wrote.
Getting paper waste in the mail on a daily basis can be rather obnoxious. But there's more to the nuisance.
Approximately 405 million tons — 892 billion pounds — of paper and paperboard are manufactured around the world annually, representing approximately 13-15% of overall wood consumption.
Massive number of forests are chopped down to support this production, which not only takes away the homes of wildlife but also destroys one of the most effective and natural ways we have to cool down our overheating planet. This makes seeing stacks of paper go to waste in the form of needless mailers all the more infuriating.
An estimated 100 billion pieces of unwanted junk mail are sent out each year in the U.S. alone. The planet-overheating gas pollution created by this invasive mail each year is about equal to the pollution created by seven U.S. states combined.
"The buying and selling of marketing lists is invasive. We should be able to say no," Alan Durning, founder and executive director of Sightline Institute, told the Sierra Club.
The good news is there are indeed ways to say no to junk mail.
To stop the flood of unsolicited mail, consider visiting DMAchoice.org. This mail management service, priced at just $4, offers a 10-year period of reduced unwanted mail, helping to declutter your mailbox.
For those who can't stop getting credit card offers, you can use OptOutPrescreen.com to reject prescreening mail for credit or insurance.
Reddit commenters had plenty to say about the issue.
"I shouldn't have to pay to opt out every 10 years when I never opted in," one user expressed.
"I work at the post office and you should see how many Uline catalogs we get and throw away since the businesses getting them haven't existed for 20+ years," another added.
"When we moved into our house, we found that the former residents were subscribed to dozens of catalogs — the first time we were able to get the mail it was a stack literally 4 inches tall made almost entirely of catalogs," recalled a third. "I used Catalog Choice and was able to get our address off the mailing lists. It's a really handy site and it cut our junk mail down significantly!"
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