Mail order catalogs harm environment

With regard to the familiar pop-culture term "Going Green," (to those of you under 40, this isn't a new concept, it's been around since the '70s), I wonder why it is that I continue to receive at least 15 mail-order catalogs at my house each and every week, some from the same companies who send me nearly the identical catalogs every two weeks, with only minor cover changes.

Mail order companies use an astonishing amount of both trees and water to produce literally tons of catalogs every year, and subsequently send them to millions of people around the country, many of whom like me, have tried unsuccessfully to remove their names from direct marketing lists.

Those Web sites that contain information on where to go in order to have your name removed are virtually useless. I know because I've gone to a vast number of them, and even paid a small amount of money to stop the catalog madness.

Now I get more catalogs than ever before!

As consumers, we are constantly being instructed to "Go Green" and conserve trees, water and just about everything else we use, and to recycle in order not to pollute the environment. And, yet, every week I receive more unwanted catalogs, advertisements, phone books that don't even contain numbers in my area, and a host of other items I don't need or want.

As the average consumer, I am apparently responsible for disposing of this clutter in a "green" manner; it is up to me and millions like me to "Go Green."

I have an idea!

Our government could take a moment from their never-ending bickering over everything and suggest to these thoroughly wasteful mail order companies (especially those who constantly complain about ever-increasing postage), that if they -- as big business -- attempted to curtail their own wasteful practices of producing far more refuse than can be recycled, a lot of natural resources could be saved in the process!

Of course, the government would need to first practice what they preach, and thus would need to begin examining their own environmentally wasteful practices!

Christine M. McCurdy

Naperville