Earth Day Tip:
How to Reduce Paper Waste (For Free!)

Go Green: Ask businesses and organizations you support to send you less paper mail.

There are fee-based firms that will do this for you, but by contacting businesses and non-profit organizations yourself and asking them to halt or reduce the amount of paper mail they send you can help minimize the amount of unsolicited paper mail you receive—for free!

How to contact businesses and non-profits you use or support:

1. Call the 1-800 numbers in the catalogs you receive and ask them to remove your name. If you've never bought anything from them, ask how they got your name so you can call that business as well.
2. Call 1-888-5-OPTOUT or visit Optoutprescreen.com to halt unsolicited credit card and insurance offers for five years.
3. Call non-profit organizations you support and instruct them not to share your name with other organizations. Non-profits rent their paper mailing lists to each other and this accounts for the amount of paper mail you receive from other organizations you may not support.
4. Call 1-888-241-6760 or visit Advo to remove your name from Advo, a mass paper mailer of advertising circulars.
5. Visit ValPak to no longer receive mass paper mailing coupons and advertisements.

Contacting businesses and non-profits you use or support helps you go green because…

* It can reduce the amount of your unsolicited paper mail, saving paper and energy costs.

Every year, each adult in the United States receives nearly 560 pieces, or about 41 pounds, of unsolicited paper mail.[1] It is estimated that 100 million trees are used each year to produce all this paper mail.[2] In addition to the loss of trees, the processing for that amount of paper uses 28 billion gallons of water.[3]

A US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) study found that in 2003, 5.4 million tons of catalogs and other bulk paper mailings were distributed, of which only 32 percent were recycled.[4] Approximately 44 percent of this unsolicited paper mail is carted to landfills unopened and unread, costing US taxpayers $320 million each year.[1]

External links

* Federal Trade Commission - Facts for Consumers

8 ways to Green Your Paper Mail:

1. Contact the Direct Marketing Association (DMA)
2. Instruct businesses and non-profits you use or support NOT to share your name
3. Hire an organization to get your name off paper mailing lists
4. Recycle your paper
5. Recycle product warranty cards
6. Urge your catalog companies to use recycled paper
7. Choose alternative paper
8. Ask businesses and organizations you support to send you less paper mail

Footnotes

• 41 Pounds - Impact of Junk paper mail
• Consumer Research Institute - Annual environmental impact of junk paper mail
• Center for A New American Dream - Just the Facts: Junk Mail Facts and Figures

Nat’s Pet Food Mat’s
Green Statement

We Recycle & Reuse. Our primary source of material for our Nat Mats (TM) is taken from unused and re-purposed manufactured vinyl flooring--which means we have not added more pollution to our environment by ordering additional materials on which to paint your mat. Most of our packaging is made from cardboard and is made from recycled paper. It  is completely recyclable after use, and re-use.  In terms of the hierarchy of actions by green businesses (and personal behavior), the highest ranked and best use of resources is to firstly reduce the original waste we create and secondly to. re-use what is available to us, maybe several times even, and thirdly, to recycle everything else.  Keep in mind that your pet place mat is reusable.  It’s easy to clean and is long-lasting. If necessary, it can easily be cut to smaller sizes for other re-uses.  

We Do Not Use Lead Paint.  We use quality non-toxic water-based paint made in the USA, rather than smelly, gassy paints that are manufactured with potentially harmful or lethal components. 

We Reduce Waste. We reduce our packaging and avoid plastic as much as possible, since most plastic is non-recyclable due to complicated carbon molecule patterns within the infinite variety of plastics and lack of motivation on the part of the plastic industry. I can’t identify what companies the entire plastic industry consists of, but vinyl flooring manufacturers are certainly a part of it.  We hope we’re acting responsibly to improve the environment by re-using this flexible, durable material.