According to Native Forest Network, every year an average person in USA receives over 500 pieces of junk mail that totals 4.5 million tons of paper. To save water, trees (100 million of them annually), gas that's used for shipping it around, and your own time, stop junk mail coming into your mailbox.

As there are many different types of junk mail, there isn't one easy way of getting rid of it all at once. Here are some steps you can take to reduce junk mail in USA.

- first class mail - cross out the address and bar code, circle the first class postage and write "refused: return to sender". Drop in any mail box, it will be returned to the sender

- catalogs - go to Catalog Choice. There you can opt out of most catalogs. As you might not remember all the catalogs you get every month, you can just bookmark the webpage and update it over a period of time after receiving new catalogs in the mail

- Valpak - the blue envelope that's sent to 45 million homes every month - lets you remove your address from their mailing list on Cox Target Media site

- RedPlum - mostly grocery store offers - can be stopped from coming on Valassis.com

- DMAchoice is a mail preverence service that lets you set your preferences for credit cards, catalogs, magazine and other mail offers

To get rid of pre-approved credit card offers, call the number on the offer (for many credit cards it's +1-888-567-8688) and follow the instructions of the automated system. You can also do it online at optoutprescreen.com

For smaller or local advertisers you might have to contact them personally - either by e-mail, phone (use their 1-800 toll free numbers and ask for customer service) or mail (use the enclosed Business Reply envelopes).

Many advertisers target you by your name, so once you are off the list, you are free for five years, but as some send their ads to a "resident" or just an address, then you might have to repeat some of the previous steps in case you happen to move and the previous tenants haven't had the address removed from the advertisers lists.

After you follow the steps above you should notice the change within a month or two.

If you feel that you don't have time to deal with getting your name off all the mailing lists, there are organizations that will do it for you for a small fee. Here's a few: 41pounds.org, Globaljunkmailcrisis.org. The Privacy Council offers a low-cost removal and monitoring service for those who wish to be removed from the major email, telemarketer and junk mail lists, either in an attempt to waste less paper or to simply clean up email inboxes.

If you still receive an occasional junk letter, be sure to recycle it, as 40% of US landfill solid waste is paper, a lot of which is (unopened) junk mail.