Progressive Wednesday

Drop a dime, save a maple

I’m willing to wager, dollars to donuts, that you’ve heard of the Do Not Call Registry. And if you’ve heard of it, I’m also betting you’ve signed up. If you haven’t, do it, baby. You want telemarketers to leave you alone? This free government service is for you.

So that’ll take care of that thing that rings, waking the cat sleeping on your lap, who, as he or she leaps away suddenly terrified, only scratches the hell out of your leg if you’re lucky.

What about junk mail, those Wal-Mart fliers and grocery coupons, a googolplex of new credit card offers and one too many Publisher’s Clearinghouse promises of riches? Well, we may have stumbled on an answer.

Green Dimes is a service that gets your name and address off junk mail lists. You read that right: no more junk mail. By stopping the annoyance that is a mailbox full of useless crap, you in turn save, quite literally, forests full of trees. There is a hitch, though: it costs you one dime each day. That’s it: 365 FDR heads. (Sorry, I made it sounds a hell of a lot more morbid than it is.) That’s 36 smackers a year. That’s six trips to fast-food joints (and, c’mon, we all know we should at least cut back our McMeals by at least six each year).

But Green Dimes (you can read more about Green Dimes and similar services in this Newsweek article) is more than a junk-mail prevention service: they’re true conservationists. In association with Trees for the Future, Green Dimes “[sponsors] tree planting on behalf of [its] members.”

So let’s break this down old school:

1. Save some trees.
2. Plant some trees.
3. Spend next to nothing.
4. Stop getting junkmail.

Another fantastic service is 41 Pounds, which does almost the same thing as Green Dimes, except half of their profits go to nonprofit organizations. An additional benefit of 41 Pounds is that they promise to keep 80% to 95% of your bulk mail away for 5 years.

Whichever one you go with, go with one: your mailbox will thank you. (Please note: your mailbox is an inanimate object and will not in fact thank you; we’re not all-out looney, okay?)

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