Easy Ways To Stop Junk Mail

BOSTON (CBS) - It's one of those daily annoyances: a mailbox filled with a bunch of worthless stuff.

Amy Blythe-Whipkey was getting a ridiculous amount of junk mail, including unwanted catalogs, credit card offers, and other solicitations. David Whipkey added, "It is frustrating because you can't keep up with it."

More than 250 million pieces of direct mail are delivered by the US Postal Service every day. According the Environmental Protection Agency, half of all that advertising mail gets tossed right in the trash without being read.

That's frustrating to the Direct Marketing Association, according to Senny Boone. "Certainly marketers and fundraisers don't want to send a marketing offer or a fundraising offer to a consumer who doesn't want to receive that."

The DMA advises consumers who want to opt out of junk mail to go to www.dmachoice.org to register. The DMA receives between 10,000-15,000 of those requests a month.

Initially, Blythe-Whipkey opted for a shredder to tackle her stack of unwanted mail. "Then, it was like I've had enough. I need to figure out a way to deal with this massive amount of mail," said Bythe-Whipkey.

Now she is using a free app called 'PaperKarma'. A user takes a picture of the mail with the name and address showing. The app then contacts the company with the information to stop the mailings.

Blythe-Whipkey has seen a reduction in the amount of unwanted mail since using PaperKarma. Direct mail is big business for the US Postal Service, which made about $16 billion of it last year.

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