This post has been updated. It originally published on Jan. 18, 2024.
A Frontgate catalog, a Fresh Direct mailer, several indistinguishable offers for new credit cards, a bunch of coupons from online stores you shopped at once: This is but a glimpse of the junk that makes its way to your mailbox every day.
According to the U.S. Postal Service, 57.5 billion of the 112.5 billion pieces of mail sent in 2024 were a melange of so-called marketing mail, which includes catalogs, credit card offers, and coupons. That’s right: 51% of all mail is junk—which means figuring out how to curb the influx of trash can feel almost impossible. But there are methods to stop the mail madness.
The environmental impact of junk mail
Beyond being a general pain in the tush, there are plenty of reasons to rid your life of junk mail. Those piles of paper amount to a lot of resources going into something most people don’t even want, says Deborah Williams, a lecturer at University of California Santa Barbara’s Environmental Studies department. Between 80 and 100 million trees are cut down to make junk mail each year. There’s a dearth of peer-reviewed data on the topic, but by some estimates floating around the web, the emissions associated with junk mail production and distribution alone are equivalent to the tailpipes of 9 million cars.
Sure, paper recycling rates are among the highest of all goods (around 68%), but for marketing mail it’s lower than that. The last time the EPA tabulated granular data for junk mail disposal was 2005, and the recycling rate then was closer to 36%, with 52% headed to the landfill.
Why do we get so much junk mail?
The tidal wave of junk mail may be turning, however: Here in 2025, its volume is slowly ratcheting downward from a peak of nearly 81 billion pieces in 2016. But, per USPS stats, junk is still big business for the agency as well as marketers. It generated more than $15 billion in revenue for USPS in 2024. Marketing mail also costs about one-third the price of standard mail, making it both a cheap and effective strategy for companies to try and sell us stuff—even if we only glance at the promos.
5 steps to stop junk mail
You certainly can’t control the USPS, but you can control what lists your address ends up on. So where to start? There are easy ways you can significantly reduce the amount of useless crap that hits your mailbox. Here are five steps to stop junk mail in a few different forms:
1. Stop credit card and insurance offers
How do you stop junk mail generated by all of those credit card and insurance companies? Operated by the four major credit reporting companies, optoutprescreen.com lets you get out of credit card and insurance offers. You can opt out for five years online, or you can print and mail a physical form to be off the hook permanently.
2. Block catalogs, magazines & marketing mailers
The Data and Marketing Association (DMA) is the largest marketing trade association in the U.S., and it’s also one of the worst junk mail offenders. DMAchoice.org allows you to opt out of catalogs, magazines, and other marketing mail for a $5 processing fee.
3. Find and slay even more catalogs
Think of catalogchoice.org as a free (but more manual) version of DMA. It lets you say “no” to individual catalogs—some of which might not be associated with the DMA.
4. Nix coupons
To cut out unwanted coupons, go directly to the biggest purveyors like Valpak, Save, and Mspark to remove your address from their registers.
5. Address the dregs
If you take the first four steps, Williams says you should see your junk mail drop significantly after 3-4 months. At that point, look closely at the unwanted promos for websites or phone numbers where you can ask to be taken off mailing lists one-by-one. This applies to donor solicitations, political mailers, and member mail (think things like Costco or an alumni association).