According to Wise Herb’s Random Jottings, Johnny Appleseed was born John Chapman in 1774. He was known for traveling around the Midwest and introducing apple trees to the area, all while spreading a message of conservation, generosity and keeping life simple.

Many of us grew up hearing stories about Johnny Appleseed and watching the Disney cartoon about him (I think the song from that cartoon is still stuck in my head, in fact). The character with the pot on his head seemed far-fetched, but in truth, Johnny Appleseed did walk around the countryside, barefoot in the summer, doing his pioneer work as a missionary and as one of the first real “tree huggers.” He had no home of his own but spent most of his time in Ohio, making other people’s lives better. He planted tree nurseries and left them in the care of neighbors who helped to sell the trees for trade or credit. Johnny didn’t press for payment if someone was unable to pay for a tree. He also did what he could to help those in need, such as injured animals. According to I Organize You, Johnny Appleseed gave away clothes, horses, trees and even land, acting as a “roving philanthropist” who challenged others to be kind and generous to people, animals and the earth.

In the spirit of Johnny Appleseed Day, The Privacy Council invites you to save trees by reducing your junk mail! Each year, 100 million trees are cut down to produce the junk mail that’s received here in the U.S. Signing up for The Privacy Council’s list removal service means you’re doing your part to save trees and reduce the pileup of trash in landfills. You’ll get less junk mail, more trees will be saved, and Johnny Appleseed himself would approve. Sign up today by clicking here!

Privacy Council wants you to know just how much waste is due to junk mail and catalogs. In a given year, it’s estimated that 19 billion catalogs are mailed to consumers. Of those, 5.6 million tons of catalogs and direct mail ads are put into landfills. That’s so much waste that it’s hard to comprehend! According to Worldwatch Institute (as quoted at Carbonrally.com), the United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but consumes 30 percent of the world’s paper. Can we recycle it? Sure, but according to the Center for a New American Dream, only 22 percent of junk mail is recycled today. Besides, that doesn’t even begin to address the energy and trees used in making all the junk mail in the first place, then recycling it later. It’s a blow to the environment on several fronts, but you can do something about it.

First, sign up for Privacy Council’s environmentally-friendly service and get yourself removed from the major catalog mailing lists. This will drastically cut the amount of junk mail you receive, so you’ll know you’re doing your part to reduce the paper waste. How much waste can you personally help to prevent? Estimates indicate that, on average, consumers receive 110 catalogs per household per year, so over ten years, you could help to keep more than a thousand catalogs from ending up in a landfill. That makes a real difference.

Also, make sure that you aren’t granting companies the right to sell your contact information to mailing lists when you sign up for a new product or service (check the fine print and opt-out whenever possible). Finally, if you still want to receive a few specific catalogs during the holidays, contact those companies directly and ask them to send you their catalogs, perhaps at a lesser pace (instead of four or five catalogs per company during the holiday season, for example, the company could send you just one or two catalogs). 

‘Tis the season to be festive, but don’t forget about the environment!   

Sources for this article: Center for a New American Dream, Carbonrally, The Virginia Gazette