Eco Tip Tuesday*: Paper Karma (Quite Possibly the Coolest App Ever)

Three years ago, when we were living in a different house, I went to great lengths to rid our lives of unnecessary paper waste in the form of junk mail. I used Catalog Choice to get rid of unwanted catalogs; I used optoutprescreen.com to eliminate credit card offers; I went to yellowpagesoptout.com to cease the delivery of phone directories to our home; and, quite often, I found myself directly contacting companies myself, either by phone or snail mail, to remove our address from their mailing lists. Overall, it was a lot of work, but well worth it. I can't tell you how nice it was to go to my mailbox each day and not find it overflowing with paper destined for the recycling bin.

And then we moved. And all the work I put in vanished completely, as we found ourselves back on the mailing lists of all the same companies (and many, many more).

Just the other day, I was sorting through the mail, getting aggravated by how useless most of it was, and feeling guilty that I hadn't done anything about it in the nearly three years we'd been living in this house. I resolved then and there to stop being lazy and get back to work. After all, we plan on living in this house indefinitely; a little hard work now will be worth it in the long run.

And then life threw me a sweet little nugget in the form of a Facebook post from a friend, introducing me to what is now on my list of Top Five Favorite Smart Phone Apps EVER: Paper Karma. Paper Karma is a new application (and currently FREE!) designed to help people eliminate unwanted junk mail from their lives. And the process couldn't be simpler:

1. Download application.
2. Await arrival of unwanted junk mail.
3. Open application and use it to photograph said junk mail.
4. Hit 'send.'
5. Do whatever the fuck you want while the Paper Karma robots take care of the rest!

I've been using Paper Karma for about a week now and have submitted six requests. So far, two of my requests have been successful, three are pending, and one failed. The failure was due to the fact that PK was unable to determine the company name from the photo I sent. (For photo tips and more information about how Paper Karma works, go here.)

So cool, right?! If you've got a smart phone, get the app (and do it now, while it's still FREE!). This is such an easy way to reduce your paper waste, help the environment, and eliminate unnecessary clutter from your life. Sometimes, technology is awesome. Embrace it!

*I realize it's not Tuesday.