Each year, more than 100 million trees are chopped up and 28 billion gallons of water are used to create the paper that goes into junk mail, according to the company GreenDimes. And Alameda County garbage officials estimate that 5 percent of the waste sent to landfills is junk mail.

You can go a long way toward reducing the amount of garbage you create by getting off the mailing lists used to send such unsolicited mail.

You can find a company to do the legwork for you. Companies like GreenDimes, www.greendimes.com, can notify all the mailing list companies in exchange for a fee -- about $36 a year for GreenDimes.

You can also do it yourself. You can get help by ordering a kit at www.stopjunkmail.org or call (877) 786-7927.

You should also write to request that your name is removed from mailing lists.

Harte-Hanks Launches New Web Platform www.citdb.com to Make Tech Contacts Easily Available to Emerging Marketers

Harte-Hanks, Inc. (NYSE: HHS), a worldwide direct and targeted marketing company, announced today the release of an e-commerce platform designed to provide small and emerging technology marketers and sellers easy access to technology contacts across North America, Europe and South America. The new site, http://www.citdb.com, allows technology companies with small marketing budgets to search and select contacts from the Harte-Hanks Ci Technology Database (CiTDB), a source of rich installed technology content from 700,000 business sites on three continents.

CiTDB.com users can focus their search on a very specific geographical area or market sector, and rent a list of contacts they want, entirely online by credit card. The data made available are name, company, mailing address and telephone number based on the user's query, but without the location's technology profile information that is only associated with a full CiTDB subscription.

'ASR Records Adds to Team

'ASR Records formally announced the addition of Roxann Stout and Jahmal Brown to the label staff. Ms. Stout will direct and develop initiatives related to the label's Booking Department. Mr. Brown will provide the label with specialized Internet Technologies skills related to the label's online portal.

Roxann Stout will be working with qualified talent buyers toward booking 'ASR Records Artists at festivals and events worldwide. She is a trained musician, studying classical piano for 12 years, classical voice, and saxophone for 7 years. She was a state champion vocalist and won the Women's Federated Competition for 2 straight years. Her promise as a vocalist was so impressive that Ms. Stout was awarded a vocal scholarship from the prestigious Berklee College of Music in Boston.

Sustainable Ballard hears about legislative environmental record

Local non-profit Sustainable Ballard celebrated its fourth birthday recently by reviewing several energy and environmental successes of the past state legislative session.Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, was the key speaker at the event held at the Sunset Hill Community Club. She applauded the organization for its grassroots efforts in promoting a more sustainable community.Though Kohl-Welles hasn't served on any environmental committees since the mid-1990s, she said it was still an issue she paid a lot of attention to."I'm not an authority on this," she warned the audience, "but I love these issues. I feel passionate about the environment in this state, country and the world and I want to do everything I can."When Democrats took over the majority in the House last November, it did more than anything else to advance environmental legislation, Kohl-Welles said.

Watch List (July 15-21): More Aggressive Loans, More Defaults

In this week's issue we report: that commercial loan defaults should start increasing soon; that the outlook for subprime backed bonds has also turned decidedly negative; and update you on the mounting cost of the alleged fraudulent Penland project in North Carolina and the forced bankruptcy of an office campus owner in Philadelphia. Plus we give you news you'll find only here and the latest facility closures, mass layoffs and properties on The Watch List. Office Loan Defaults Likely To Rise Loan defaults for U.S. CMBS are likely to begin ticking up as deals issued over the last few years contain larger concentrations of interest-only (IO) loans and loans with a higher amount of debt, according to the latest CMBS loan default study by Fitch Ratings. Though CMBS loan defaults fell 15% by balance last year to $1.57 billion, cumulative CMBS loan defaults increased to $13 billion (3.29% of Fitch's default study universe).

Win £1,000 worth of ecommerce software! - .net magazine

This issue, .net has team up with Actinic Software Ltd to give away three copies of Actinic Designer, each worth £350. We know, that as a .net reader, one of your main strengths is design, so an ecommerce package that contains all the functionality most of your clients will need, yet one that is flexible enough to give you creative freedom, would be ideal.

Watch List (July 15-21): More Aggressive Loans, More Defaults

In this week's issue we report: that commercial loan defaults should start increasing soon; that the outlook for subprime backed bonds has also turned decidedly negative; and update you on the mounting cost of the alleged fraudulent Penland project in North Carolina and the forced bankruptcy of an office campus owner in Philadelphia. Plus we give you news you'll find only here and the latest facility closures, mass layoffs and properties on The Watch List. Office Loan Defaults Likely To Rise Loan defaults for U.S. CMBS are likely to begin ticking up as deals issued over the last few years contain larger concentrations of interest-only (IO) loans and loans with a higher amount of debt, according to the latest CMBS loan default study by Fitch Ratings. Though CMBS loan defaults fell 15% by balance last year to $1.57 billion, cumulative CMBS loan defaults increased to $13 billion (3.29% of Fitch's default study universe).

Guerrilla Marketing Guru Al Lautenslager Provides Small-Business Owners With Tips on How to Market Their Business

REDMOND, Wash. (Map) - What: Many small-business owners do not have enough money to promote themselves effectively. If budget is an issue, some proven nontraditional marketing methods such as guerilla marketing can help get the word out.