If you’ll forgive me for touching on a subject unrelated to cabinet post appointments, Sarah Palin or anything else currently on the political stage, it bears mentioning that Saturday is America Recycles Day. A visit to their site is recommended, even for the faithful as a refresher.
However, the "Reduce" imperative of "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle" is the best way to go from an environmental/energy saving point of view. We’re all better off if unneeded things are never created, rather than if they’re recycled.
A short list of easily accessible means of reducing the unwanted:
Catalogs: I’ve found that (a) I was receiving many more catalogs than I realized and (b) they’re easily stopped. A site such as Catalog Choice will do a good job of ridding your mailbox of unwanted catalogs but it’s just as easy to simply call the customer service phone number (usually included with the catalog) and ask to have your name dropped from their mailing list. The procedure is well known to the person answering the phone and they can do it with a few key strokes.
Junk Mail: DMAChoicewill significantly reduce the amount of junk mail you receive but can’t eliminate it all, especially stuff coming from local merchants. For the stuff that comes through, I let most of it end up in the recycle bin at home or, in those cases where it seems likely to be effective, I’ll call the merchant and ask to have my name dropped from their list. Most will do so. Opt Out Screen is a way to target credit card solicitations specifically.
Phone books: With online e access to phone numbers the need for a set of bulky, depending on the size of your community, phone books is virtually nonexistent. Truth be told, it’s a revenue generator for the phone book providers, not a convenience to consumers. Avail yourselves of yellowpagesgoesgreen.org to cancel the delivery of unwanted phones books
Anyone else have a recommendation?
Now back to our program of political mayhem... already in progress.