10 Ways to Creatively Reduce Your Junk Mail

1. Make cards!  Birthdays, Mothers and Fathers’ day cards, thank you notes, wedding invites, you name it.  “When I got married, I sent “Save the date” postcards made from handmade paper which consisted of recycled wedding related ad mailers I’d received,” says Cristin Frank of www.theEveofReduction.com

2. “The bigger, brighter, and bolder the junk mail the better.  My 2-year-old chops those little suckers into neat little pieces (with safety scissors and responsible adult in attendance, of course!) for use at a later date,” says Roy Murphy from London.  Junk mail is a great way to interact with your kids by using them for “confetti or fun activity-colored paper for gluing down.”

3. Make hand-made paper from colorful junk mail to use with your kids or in scrapbooking.

4.  Use it for paper mache.

5. Wrapping paper! “I recycle all of the junk mail except for the calendars. I use those as wrapping paper. The calendar-wrapped packages are always a hit,” says Mary Choate of Monroe, NH.

6.  Introduce junk mail to your garden.  Red wiggler worms love to eat the paper and turn it into dirt.  Newsprint also makes for great compost.  And many find immense satisfaction in shredding their junk mail to mix it in with the compost, just make sure that the paper doesn’t contain a lot of dye so it won’t leech into the environment.

7.   Take a tip from these talented junk mail artists! :

a)   “I own a small jewelry and digital stationary business with my husband

( http://www.littleTstudio.etsy.com & http://www.littleTstudo.com ) and we have found that we get lots of credit card offers and magazine offers.  We shred everything that comes with the offer except for the pre-paid return envelope.  We create a professional looking mini flyer promoting our little business (4 flyers to one 8 ½ X 11 page – this also helps save paper!), and we insert the flyer into the pre-paid envelope and mail it back.  Its great advertising as someone on the receiving end of that envelope will be opening it and we’ve recycled the envelope in a way that helps to promote our business!” says Tonya from little T studio.

b) “I decided several years ago to start using junk mail and old magazines as the main medium for my pottery.  It is called upcycling — taking items of low value and transforming them into something with a higher value.  After about a year of trial and error on the technique, I began taking them in to the office and giving them to friends as gifts.  Eventually, I began to get requests to purchase the pots and vases.  Finally, just this month, I am about to launch a website dedicated to selling the upcycled paper pottery,” says Cathleen Savage.  You can find her on Twitter: http://twitter.com/blue_drift and Facebook as well.

These last three are supplied with a sense of humor by Roy Murphy, Creative Director at Halpern Cowan of London:

8. “Organize [a] Junk Paper airplane throwing competition on your street, bring down the local press, take some photos, name the worst protagonists, winner of furthest throw gets scary security guard on their porch for a week to reject any junk mail and brings it personally to sender.”

9.  “Making a community action protest scarecrow to shame junk mail senders into reducing. Set fire to it and film it for Youtube revolution protest (may need council permission for this one I think).”

10. “Collaborate with post office / mail on “JunkTrunk” initiative – i.e. put your junk in this trunk, simplify message about junk mail, don’t just stick it in with the rubbish etc…”

Thanks to all who participated via HARO and remember to keep telling us how you feel at SocialYell!

Ashley Strickland is a senior majoring in journalism at the University of Georgia.  She has enjoyed every minute of reading emails flooding her inbox that rant about junk mail.