What You Can Do
Stop Junk Mail
To reduce the amount of junk mail you receive:
- Place a No Advertising Material sticker on your letter box. The stickers are available free of charge from the Distribution Standards Board. Call 1800 676 136 or send a self addressed envelope to: DSB Sticker Offer, PO Box 7735, St Kilda Road, Melbourne 8004.
- Register your details on the Consumer Do Not Contact Opt Out Service. Including yourself on this list will ensure that you are not contacted by 500 members of the Australian Direct Marketing Association. These members include banks, insurance companies, publishers, catalogue and mail order companies and charities who contact consumers via: mail, telephone, direct response television, the internet and mobile phones.
To request removal click here.
In the Home
- Reduce rubbish: only buy things you really need. Most of what we throw away could be used again. Think twice before you put something in the bin
- Reuse products: use containers again and ask your school or workplace to provide reusable cups, plates, cutlery etc
- Give away or sell: charity and nearly new shops, jumble sales and community schemes are good places to donate or sell second hand clothes, toys and furniture
- Repair or adapt: the best environmental choice is to repair, restore or adapt a product you already have
- Reduce packaging: consider buying fruit and vegetables loose and take shopping bags with you
- Recycle more: recycle things yourself, and buy recycled products
- Dispose of chemicals safely: call the Clean-Out Info Hotline on 1300 787 870.
In the Office
- Substitute virgin stationery products with recycled content ones where possible. Most office machines can use good quality recycled content paper and remade toner cartridges without problems
- Use double sided copying and make notebooks from scrap paper
- Audit office waste to help improve waste and recycling systems
- Ask your supplier about different types of recycled content products available
- Use e-mail and on-line publishing to avoid using paper and don’t print everything out
- Use recycling bins at desks, printers, faxes and photocopiers to keep good quality paper separate for recycling
- Keep rubbish out of recycling bins to ensure that paper does not become contaminated and unusable
- Make staff aware of the importance of buying recycled content products and that recycling saves valuable resources and the environment
- Make sure cleaners know how your recycling system works and don’t accidentally throw away valuable materials.
