I get a zillion catalogs. I don’t know how I get on the distribution list for them, but the amount of paper that is used for these is appalling. Any good ideas for stopping the catalog madness?

Napan Lisa Jaynes suggests www.catalogchoice.org, which allows you to cancel catalogs without calling each merchant. It doesn’t require any special information and you can browse the site if you don’t remember the names of the catalogs clogging your mailbox, but would recognize them. Jaynes said she logs in whenever she gets an unwanted catalog in the mail and over time has canceled at least 10.

She likes it because “it was easy to use and they don’t sell your information.”

The site promises not to share your personal information beyond what’s needed to take you off their list.

“Their goal is just to reduce the waste and save trees and the planet,” so it would not support that “tree-hugging” mission, she said, if they sold your information to junk mail generators.

The free service’s site states it is affiliated with the Ecology Center, which provides information, tools, technical assistance, referrals, political strategies, and models for sustainable living.

Jaynes started using it when she saw a flyer for the site in her garbage bill and since has spread the word.

“A lot of people think it’s interesting and neat and say they’re going to check it out,” she said.

The flyer went out earlier this year to about 26,000 Napa city and south county garbage customers, according to the city’s Napa Materials Diversion Administrator Kevin Miller.

“The city and county of Napa are true believers in waste prevention, sometimes called ‘precycling.’ In the case of unwanted junk mail, recycling is good (and certainly better than sending it to be buried in a landfill),” Miller said, “but avoiding the junk mail in the first (place) is much better for the environment.” It’s the reduce part of “reduce, reuse, recycle.”

Last fall a neighborhood in St. Helena decided to see just how many catalogs were clogging their mailboxes with pitches for holiday purchases. From Oct. 1 to the end of November, the participating neighbors collected 320 lbs. of catalogs. That’s a lot of paper. That’s also before these neighbors found out about www.catalog choice.org, according to a Register account from Dec. 22, 2007, so hopefully that’s a lot catalogs that won’t be made next year.

What is Glad You Asked?

Glad You Asked attempts to answer readers’ questions. So dig yourself out from the pile of junk mail and make your way to the computer or phone to send a question to jdecker@napanews.com or 256-2215. I’ll deliver you an answer, no junk enclosed.