Stop the Junk

I am constantly bothered whenever I go to check the mail and I find advertisements or other pieces of junk mail sitting in the mail box. These pieces of paper invariably end up in the trash. It is not always easy to stop junk mail but what about the rest of it. The letters and magazine subscriptions, even Netflix envelopes that get thrown away. In the school mailbox half of the stuff I find is an advertisement. Every one of these actions could become more green. Most magazines that you have to pay to subscribe to you could go paperless for. With websites you could buy a subscription and instead of getting a magazine that is half advertisements and a huge waste of paper you could go online and if needed buy a subscription to the website. Also letters hurt the environment. Whether they have more sentimental value than an email is up for debate but they undoubtedly end up in the trash sooner or later. Something that has surfaced over the past few years are E-cards. For birthdays or any other occassion that you would send a card you could send an E-card. Essentially it is an email that is themed and gets across the message with a personal touch. Every bit of mail we need/receive could end up paperless with just a little bit of extra work. I also see a lot of people printing out articles that are for homework that we need to read. In a class about environmentalism we are really not being that environmentally friendly. We could honestly do a bit better. I read the article and if something is important or it seems to me to be a good idea I write it down. I use one sheet of paper for a 10 page article. You do not need to cut paper out of your life just cut down. By "cutting down" on the paper you use you do not cut down the trees it would cost to fuel the printer.