Stopping junk mail’s easy — theoretically — since all you need to do is say no. But because you have to say no to so many different companies — and may want to preserve one or two coupon mailers you use — de-cluttering your mail box can get difficult pretty fast. This perhaps explains why so many people still get — and complain about — the amount of junk mail they get.

But de-junk-mailing doesn’t have to be so hard! Just follow these steps to declare junk mail independence this July 4 — and to save a whole lot of paper ( read: trees) while you’re at it. I’ll start with the free services — a bit more time consuming, but easier to customize for your individual needs — then go on to the paid ones that do the hard work for you.

1. Bye bye credit card offers. These things have gotten a lot of people into financial holes lately — so stop the debt catastrophes from ever tempting you by opting out of credit card offers. You can opt out for 5 years or forever — though if you change your mind, all you have to do is stop by the site again to opt in.

2. Get off the Direct Marketing Association’s list — for $1 if you mail in the form (see right sidebar). There also appears to be  an online option that requires registration, but I don’t recommend this as it’s oddly complicated. Note that this step won’t stop the Val-Pak or ShopWise or any of the other local coupon packets — just the totally random junk mail that seemed to come outta nowhere. A few months after sending in the form, you’ll start to see a junk mail decrease.

3. Stop the catalogs. Sign up for the FREE Catalog Choice, which’ll let you halt catalogs you don’t want very easily AND monitor to make sure they actually are keeping you off their lists. You can also contact the catalog companies individually via their customer service lines — but of course that’ll take more time.

4. Ditch the local coupon lists — Val-Pak, ShopWise, Pennysaver (call 800.422.4116), Local Community Values (call 626.472.5377), and Money Mailer. Annoyingly, you’ll need to contact each of them separately — but this could be good news for people who want to keep getting one of these but not the rest.

5. Junk the individual stuff. Still getting other types of junk mail? Call the customer service lines, then wait to get hold of an actual person who can take your name off the lists.

And now for the paid services!  If you really want off the lists but the above seems way too time consuming for you, these companies can help — for a small fee:

>> 41pounds.org. This company promises to reduce your junk mail by 80-95%! $41 covers you for five years, with $15 of that money going to a nonprofit of your choice. The fee covers you even if you move, as long as it’s within four years of subscribing.

>> GreenDimes. This company promises a 90% reduction in your junk mail. $20 covers you for a year — even if you move — and will get 5 trees planted for you on your behalf.

Got all that done? Then pat yourself on your back because you’ve really shrunk your carbon footprint today. Junk mail’s un-eco effect’s the equivalent of more than nine million cars (PDF) or the emissions generated by heating nearly 13 million homes for the winter, according to a study by ForestEthics.

Don’t see why you should have to do all this work to stop junk mail you never asked for in the first place? Then sign ForestEthics’ Do Not Mail Petition, which is pushing lawmakers to create a national Do Not Mail list, similar to the existing Do Not Call list. So far, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors want a Do Not Mail Registry and passed a resolution calling on California to create one — but the resolution’s non-binding and has no actual power to help people make the junk mail stop.

Unfortunately, this fight will probably go on for a while, as the United States Postal Service has launched a Mail Moves America campaign. USPS allies include some environmental groups, which themselves send unsolicited letters (usually asking for money) to mass mailing lists. So what can you do besides sign a petition and getting rid of your own junkmail? Make it a point never to respond to mailed requests for donations — and let the organizations you donate to know that their unsolicited junk mail has you rethinking your generosity.

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Still haven’t seen the eco-documentary of the summer, Food, Inc.? If money’s what’s keeping you away from the theaters, you’re in luck — According to Eater LA, a couple more free screenings of Food, Inc. are happening later this month:

>> Tues., July 14, 2009 at 7:30 pm: Laemmle Playhouse 7 Cinemas, 673 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena

>> Thurs., July 16, 2009 at 7:30 pm: Laemmle Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., West Hollywood

Featured in that film is Stonyfield Farm Organic, a sponsor for my trip to BlogHer ‘09. Food, Inc. brings in Stonyfield Farm as an example of an organic food company gone big, since this all-organic yogurt company’s 85% owned by Groupe Danone and can be found everywhere from local co-op markets to Wal-Mart. Some enviro purists remain skeptical with what they see as “big organic,” and in fact the Stonyfield’s own rep in the film says the jury’s still out on the effect of multinational buyouts of smaller organic companies.

Food, Inc.’s pretty remarkable in the way it explores some of the conflicts within the organic movement, even as it covers the broader issues of food production, immigration, and much much more.

In any case, Stonyfield’s actively promoting the film on its website as well as on its yogurt lids, and even has an exclusive interview with Food, Inc. director Robert Kenner on its website. Plus, Stonyfield’s website lets you get coupons from a whole bunch of organic companies, from Stonyfield itself to Nature’s Path cereals to Amy’s organic cake. Watch and learn!

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>> Chat with Michael Pollan about Food, Inc. at 3 pm today, Thurs., July 2, on Facebook! Michael will answer your Facebook and Twitter (send to @takepart) questions in the video player. Earlier: Film Review: Food, Inc.

>> Westside LA Green Drinks happens tonight, Thurs., July 2, from 7 pm - 10 pm at The Green Life, 2409 Main St., Santa Monica. A stylist from Hamadi Organics — a paraben-free beauty product line — will be doing demos and mini-makeovers from 7 pm - 9 pm. Take your own cup or glass to enjoy organic wine and local beer! Earlier: Green Drinks FAQ

>> Celebrate Food Independence Day on July 4 by eating local! The initiative’s launched by Kitchen Gardeners International, with the goal to get all 50 U.S. governors to eat local on Independence Day. Sign the petition, and share the deets of your local meal at Food Independence Day’s website.

>> Food and Water Watch wants your help in getting bottled water companies to disclose how much clean water they’re pumping out of California communities. Join the meeting on Tues., July 8 at 7 pm in downtown L.A.

>> Learn to make organic tamales! Deborah Stern, the white-girl tamale maker of La Guera Tamalera, will host an Organic Tamalada on Saturday, July 11 from noon to 2:30 pm at 1326 E. 1st St., Los Angeles. The class, which you can register for online, costs $58 a person — but green LA girl readers can get a 2-for-$100 deal by calling Deborah at 213.880.0277.

Image via Food, Inc.

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>> A vegan-friendly Taco Bell menu! The Onion makes fun of greenwashed fast food with a “news” report about Taco Bell’s new green menu — which takes nothing from nature! The “meat” used to be made of 85% gluten filler, 8% petroleum based grease flavoring and 4% meat. Now that 4%’s been replaced with a simple chemical adhesive! (via murketing)

Taco Bell’s New Green Menu Takes No Ingredients From Nature

Scarily, this “meat” reminds me of the scary fake meats beloved by many vegans.

>> Plastics are forever, but plastic art is not — and details of this story will make you leery about storing food and drinks in plastic containers:

It’s inevitable, however, that even plastic objects kept in dark, sterile drawers will begin to deteriorate chemically…. Often the only clue a plastic is degrading is its odor. Some begin to smell like ammonia or take on a sickly new-car smell. PVC weeps chlorine, giving it a swimming-pool smell, and any plastics with acetate eventually give off whiffs of acetic acid, which is found in vinegar. Other plastics are redolent of burnt milk, burnt hair, celery, cinnamon, raspberry jam, or camphor “muscle rub.”

Worst of all, when plastics weep and bleed they can corrupt everything around them. Chemicals evaporate from their surface and acidify any moisture inside a display case. This causes mini bouts of acid rain that in turn eat away at the plastic in nearby objects—as well as any cloth, metal, or paper in those objects.

>> Rejoice Californians — Only about a quarter of us are obese! Seriously, we’re one of the slimmer states according to the latest obesity rankings. (via Bitten)

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>> Cali’s now allowed to set tougher tailpipe emissions laws! Earlier:  Cali’s tougher car emissions law gets a boost from Obama.

>> Relatedly, Cali’s going to require cars to have heat-reflecting windows, starting with 2012 models. That rule’s expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions related to air conditioner use. According to Wired’s Autopia, AC efficiency’s a hot topic since eco-ACs could improve fuel efficiency too.

>> Cali’s set to get more solar energy fast, now that the Obama administration’s fast tracked solar development in the west. “The proposed California solar-generating areas are projected to have the annual capacity to produce 39,000 to 70,000 megawatts of electricity at full development — enough to serve millions of homes.”

>> L.A. recorded its 4th straight year with below average rainfall yesterday. “From July 1 of last year to today, a period designated as a “rain year,” only about 9 inches of rain fell compared to an average of slightly more than 15 inches, said Bill Patzert, a climatologist with the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in La Cañada Flintridge.” Earlier: Eating local in a drought: Should we buy Cali rice?

>> Missed the Venice Eco Fest over the weekend? Me too. But Matt Mason didn’t — and he’s put together a photo-essay of sorts so you can visit the fest virtually.

Photo by Simone Ramella

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In case you hadn’t heard yet, L.A. vegan restaurants are feeding eggs and milk to vegans (via Boing Boing, thanks to Zak).That’s right — A vegan blog called Quarry Girl undertook “Operation Pancake” — a study that basically bought food from 17 L.A. vegan restaurants and tested them for animal products. 10 restaurants passed the test — but 7 did not. According to Quarry Girl:

What the test results seem to confirm … is that the meat substitutes available at vegan Thai restaurants are suspect, as are the ingredients used in some specific food options (pancakes, quesadillas and more).

The specific issue that Quarry Girl points to is that meat substitutes imported from Taiwan sometimes include animal ingredients that aren’t listed on the ingredient labels — an omission that appears largely due to the different food labeling laws in Taiwan vs. the U.S. Luckily, Taiwan’s poised to tighten its food labeling laws, which will hopefully help close this un-vegan-friendly gap in information.

But the larger and more important issue, IMHO, is that many of these meat substitutes are highly processed foods with massive ingredient lists and huge travel footprints that bring up some of the same sort of scary issues as the synthetic, engineered foods from Nestle and Kraft. According to Quarry Girl, “MOST, if not all, of the fake meats you buy come from Taiwan.”

Part of my reaction to this story may simply have to do with all the overzealous vegans and would-be vegans that “inform” me that vegan is by definition the greenest of green (read this comment string for an example of the vegan harangues I have to deal with — mostly via email — every couple weeks) — an assumption that most sustainable foodies would disagree with. But given the choice between an egg from an organic free range chicken farmer at my local farmers’ market and some multi-ingredient “meat” that’s made with in Taiwan using genetically-modified ingredients grown via factory farming before getting shipped over to the U.S.,  I’d opt for the egg.

Yes, I know some vegans are very mindful about making sure their vegan diet is actually green, opting for locally-produced tofu stir-fried in Cali olive oil. Those vegans know well that “vegan” apparently isn’t always vegan in L.A. restaurants — and a vegan diet most certainly isn’t always green. After all, the mercury-tainted, high fructose corn syrupy Hershey’s chocolate syrup’s also vegan.

Photo by Andrew Dowsett and Divine Harvester

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Trader Joe’s got a failing score on  Greenpeace’s seafood sustainability scorecard last year — and unfortunately, held tight to its F in 2009 — despite the fact that more than half the other supermarkets improved their fishy scores.

It’s sad but true: The organic-friendly, budget-friendly super market’s still scoring lower than Target and Wal-Mart when it comes to sustainable seafood — as readers Don of LA Stories and Mel have already discovered.

Dubbed Carting Away the Oceans: How Grocery Stores are Emptying the Seas, Greenpeace’s report scored supermarkets on their fish purchasing policies, checking to see if any endangered “red list” fish— like orange roughy, swordfish, and Chilean sea bass — were still being sold, and whether or not sustainable seafood policies or initiatives were implemented. No supermarkets got a “Good” score, but 7 stores — with Wegman’s, Ahold USA, and Whole Foods topping the list — earned a “Pass” score. The remaining 13 — including Trader Joe’s — were labeled “Fail.”

This means that if you do your seafood shopping at a major supermarket or grocery store, you’d be well advised to carry along a Monterey Bay Aquarium Sustainable Seafood Guide to avoid buying any enviro-questionable seafood.

If you’re lucky enough to have co-ops or other health food markets near you, check to see if Greenpeace has given it a score — because some smaller and indie stores actually get passing grades! At those places, your seafood shopping will be less stressful, since you won’t have to constantly consult your Seafood Watch guide.

Of course, if you’re concerned about your mercury consumption as well as species preservation, you’ll still need a separate guide. Thanks to reader Mel, I’ve found a new seafood guide that combines all this info! Neil Banas made an eco-nerdy seafood guide (PDF) merging together eco and toxins info.  Print it out and enjoy sustainable, healthy seafood –

Earlier:
>> New local fish guides for SoCal
>>The End of the Line is in theaters now.
>> Tuna trivia: How much albacore can you eat?

Images via Greenpeace and Monterey Bay Aquarium

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Win free stuff while discovering green themed blogs! Stop by Green Gretchen or The Good Human for your chance to win:

>> An ecoSkin dress. Green Gretchen’s giving you a chance to win an ecoSkin dress of your choice! Pick from one of the four above, all made in the U.S. from a Bamboo-Tencel-Spandex blend. Read the Green Gretchen post to find out how you can enter multiple times by blogging, facebooking, and tweeting about the contest.

>> A Solio Universal Hybrid Solar Charger. The Good Human’s giving away this $99 gadget that’ll juice up your small electronics with the power of the sun. Read The Good Human’s post and follow the very complicated instructions — which include a mandatory subscription to The Good Human — for a chance to win the Solio.

Photos via Planet Threads

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Though I’m writing this while stuck at an airport, I’m really looking forward to my BlogHer ‘09 trip to Chicago next month — especially since the city’s made some very impressive green changes since BlogHer ‘07, when I was last there. The Windy City’s hard at work on the Chicago Climate Action Plan, after all.

But for this post, I’ve decided to focus on the important stuff: Food. Yummy green Chicago dining spots I’ve visited:

Coffee lovers: Swim Cafe. Go here for 100% fair trade coffee from Just Coffee, tasty food that supports organic agriculture, and a relaxed atmosphere. The indie coffee shop’s been made famous by Young American Bodies — Above’s the panini I ate during the last BlogHer. Find it at 1357 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago.

Pizza lovers: Crust. This organic restaurant makes very tasty flatbread pizzas — great with organic vodka cocktails organic pinot blanc  or other yummy organic drinks. 95% of the ingredients used at this eatery are organic. Two  years ago I had a “Shrooms” pizza with yummy fresh mushrooms, goat cheese, and seasoned spinach. 2056 W. Division St., Chicago.

Veg and vegan food lovers: The Chicago Diner.. This very chilled out and popular spot’s proudly meat free — and serves up some yummy organic cocktails and fair trade coffee too. Vegetarians, vegans, and raw foodies will all find something to love here. The vegan reuben’s apparently the house specialty, but I can attest to the wilted spinach salad’s yumminess too. 3411 N. Halsted., Chicago.

Fine diners: Green Zebra. This higher-end, well-known vegetarian restaurant isn’t cheap — but the food’s delicious and the atmosphere chic. The staff’s very accommodating of any and all odd eating requirements and quirks. 1460 W. Chicago Ave., Chicago.

Since I’ve already tried all those spots, I plan to try out these eateries this time around:

Butterfly Social Club. Organic cocktails, from Goji Kombucha Cider to Funky Budda’s Margarita. 726 W. Grand Ave.

Hopleaf Bar. Lotsa beer, organic wine, and organic meat options — plus a nice array of vegetarian dishes to choose from. 5148 N. Clark St.

Lula Cafe.  Seasonal, organic, local produce at a cafe in Logan Square. 2537 N. Kedzie Blvd.

Other non-dining green spots I hope to check out this time around include:

Pivot Boutique: Eco-fashion boutique at 1101 W. Fulton Market.

Working Bikes Co-Op. The kids here fix up donated bikes, donating some to countries where bikes’re scarce and selling others cheaply in its Chicago store. 1125 S. Western Ave.

Parks. 90% of Chicago’s parks are pesticide free, according to Grist. I’ve visited one — Above’s me and my friend Anne under the bean.

Know of other green spots in the Windy City? Share your knowledge in the comments –

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Go Green Expo in Atlanta last weekend was a lot smaller than its L.A. counterpart — but the Georgia event was full of eco-superheroes, sort of.

Above’s the anti-disposable-bag eco-fashionista, standing in front of GreenPlate’s booth. Dressed entirely in the environmental blight that’s the disposable plastic bag, the eco-superhero promoted reusable bags and bottles.

Then there was the recycling fashion icon, wearing a skirt of disposable plastic water bottles. The colorful Kika Paprika T-shirt she’s wearing was also made with recycled plastic water bottles!

Last but not least was Captain Planet, roaming the expo floor sending out good green vibes — mostly by posing for photos with excited kids.

Does thinking about Captain Planet take you right back to your own childhood? Watch the hero in action again on Mother Nature Network, which has all the old Captain Planet episodes for you to watch free online.

Meanwhile, I’m still stuck at the Atlanta airport, thanks to a now 4-hour flight delay. I may never visit Atlanta again, specifically to avoid this airport –

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