Bright Idea: Saving the world one piece of mail at a time

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By Teri Karush Rogers  |
March 17, 2010 - 3:02PM
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This week we bring you two ways your building can save the world while saving you time at the paper shredder.

Property manager Cooper Square Realty tells us about a co-op that successfully implemented a "Paper Opt-Out" program.

Residents who sign up no longer receive hand-delivered memos, letters, or notices.  Building communiques formerly dispersed via tree pulp are instead dispensed via Cooper Square's community website, Cooper Square Connect.   New residents are automatically enrolled.

To control the incipient catalog tsunami threatening mailboxes and mailrooms, a free online service called CatalogChoice will cancel your catalogs for you.  

"It saves the mailman's back (and time) as well as the super's recycling and sorting time," says Marlene Hartstein, an associate broker at Warburg Realty.

A push at the building level can nudge neighbors into action: "Many buildings encourage residents to sign up for it," says Hartstein.

Do you have a Bright Idea for a low-cost quality-of-life improvement in your building? Let us know so we can spread the word! 

Recent Bright Ideas:

A hand-sanitzer for the lobby

A cure for stroller-strewn hallways

A bike-loan program for your building

 

Teri Rogers Headshot - Floral

Teri Karush Rogers

Founder & Publisher

Founder and publisher Teri Karush Rogers launched Brick Underground in 2009. As a freelance journalist, she had previously covered New York City real estate for The New York Times. Teri has been featured as an expert on New York City residential real estate by The New York Times, New York Daily News, amNew York, NBC Nightly News, The Real Deal, Business Insider, the Huffington Post, and NY1 News, among others. Teri earned a BA in journalism and a law degree from New York University.

Brick Underground articles occasionally include the expertise of, or information about, advertising partners when relevant to the story. We will never promote an advertiser's product without making the relationship clear to our readers.

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