Archive: Around Town

With the start of the holiday season fast approaching, residents will soon see a surge of catalogs, coupons, and circulars flooding their mailboxes, adding to the more than 80 billion pieces of unsolicited mail that Americans receive collectively each year. To help combat the influx of unwanted holiday junk mail and promote a clutter-free, organized start to the New Year, Tompkins County Solid Waste provides a free opt-out program to residents designed and operated by Catalog Choice – a TrustedID company and the nation’s leading mail preference service.

Launched in 2010, the program allows Tompkins County residents to opt-out of unsolicited mailings.

“Getting unwanted mail is always a pain, but it gets even worse during the holidays when companies are trying to promote their products and sales with incessant catalogs, fliers, circulars, and coupons,” said Scott Mitic, Chief Executive Office, TrustedID. “Tompkins County is empowering its residents to make a choice this holiday season and claim a fresh start to the New Year by reducing clutter and disorganization caused by masses of unwanted mail.”

Each U.S. household receives close to 1,000 pieces of direct mail each year. In addition to frustrating residents, this unwanted mail accounts for millions of pounds of waste and thousands of dollars worth of collection and landfill costs annually – money that could be going towards the community instead.

“Unwanted mail is an economic and environmental burden on our community,” states Barb Eckstrom, Tompkins County Solid Waste Manager. “With the holidays right around the corner, we’ll be inundated with mailers. The mail preference service offers an ease of use to prevent this problem. It’s a smart choice for our residents and helps businesses target people who actually want their marketing materials.”

Over 1,750 residents in Tompkins County have already signed-up for the mail preference program, working together to opt-out of almost 24,000 mailings, save more than 825 trees and 349,000 pounds of greenhouse gases. It is notable that Tompkins County has a high participation rate, with over 4% of county households participating in this program, compared to the U.S. average participation rate of 1.5% of all households.

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