This morning, in my mail, I received catalogs from the Pottery Barn, J Crew, Staples, and Calumet. I’ve never purchased anything from two of those companies, and haven’t purchased anything from the other two since moving to this new address. How have they tracked me down? I have absolutely no idea.

A bit of online research yields that the average person receives 16.7 pounds of catalog junk mail yearly. Collectively, we Americans receive 2.26 million tons of them, and as they’re tough to recycle, each year an additional 4.75 million cubic yards of landfill space are needed to tuck away those glossy pages of heather and oatmeal pique knit crews, of mahogany-stained plank dining tables and matching chair sets.

In my case, I no longer even leaf through the catalogs before tossing them – were I to make my very first Pottery Barn purchase, I’d either head into a store or shop online. But, month by month, the catalogs regularly roll up none the less.

Earlier this week, the small California tree-hugging voice in the back of my head, the one somehow not squelched by years of Ivy League snottery and New York City faux-sophistication, managed to chime in and convince me I needed to do something about it. So, now, each time I receive a catalog that I know I’ll never read, before tossing it, I call the company’s 800 number and ask to be removed from their mailing list.

16.7 pounds less of catalog trash a year isn’t much. But it’s a start.