I order from quite a few online retailers and unfortunately it seems they always thereafter put you on their mailing list for their catalogs. I rarely order from a catalog so today when I received 3 catalogs from my favourite pet supply company- (3 different catalogs same supplier), I called them and requested they take me off their catalog mailing list.  I'm going to do that from now on with all the catalogs I receive.  It will save the company who sends them money, and is the green thing to do, it might also save me money as I won't be tempted to order something when I see them in my mailbox.  Why don't you join me and do the same??

Carolyn

I've been doing this for years.  In fact, I also call the companies that send catalogs to people where I work.  I guess because of the business license process and public name/address disclosure, my boss was getting catalogs from tons of industries and companies, some that have nothing to do with our business.  And actually, we didn't need the ones that are even remotely related to our business either.  And once you are on some mailing lists the catalogs start to escalate as they send the lists to other companies.  Plus his wife ordered some stuff and had it shipped to our address so the catalog avalanche for her started too.  All kinds of obscure clothing, furniture and shoe stores and not just once in a while, but different versions throughout the week from the same companies.  How can they afford to send out that much glossy material?  Nobody wanted any of these, so I just started calling and cancelling everything a couple of years ago and it's eventually paid off.  Plus we'd get multiple copies of those workshop/seminar pamplets addressed to five different job titles that we don't even have at our company and I started mailing the address labels back to them so those have almost stopped too.  We don't look at any marketing/soliciting material, it all goes in the trash/recycling straightaway.

Quite a few years ago I used to work at a big company and did a stint in their mailroom.  They had the same problem, only on a much larger scale.  Just think of getting not just one but ten or more of each of those catalogs and you have to stuff them in individual or department mailboxes or run the cart around to their areas.  Some of the recipients want them, some don't.  Then they get trashed, instead of recycled.  And depending on company policy, some may not ever leave the mailroom.  Since we're small where I am now I took it upon myself to stop the mess, but who can do this at a larger business; I'm sure it's a huge problem. 

I've used this site for about a year and it's made a huge difference.

http://www.catalogchoice.org/

I also use catalog choice and it has helped.