For years I have been resisting paperless credit card, bill and bank statements, but the time has come for me to drop my stubborn hold on receiving paper in the mail and start getting all of my bills sent via email. The reasons I’ve held off on asking for email-only notification are selfish and stupid: I am more apt to ignore my email than I am to ignore my snail mail, I like having paper records of my bills, I am loathe to change a system that’s been working for me for the past 15+ years…

All bad reasons considering how many trees I’ve most likely been responsible for chopping down since I was issued my first credit card – the Discover Card – as a freshman at the University of Delaware.

I was, in part, motivated to sign up for paperless billing this month when I received my AT&T Universal Card statement in the mail. For the past 2 years I’ve not made a single purchase with this card – I simply pay the bill every month in a desperate attempt to reduce my personal debt-load. I shut the card down a few years back when they tried to raise my interest rate – 22% was a little rich for my blood!

This means that there is no detailed statement to check each month – I simply look at what’s due, check the interest payment and pay the bill electronically. The statement gets filed away in my heavy-duty metal filing cabinet full of folders that are full of similar statements. When I got the bill this month however, something on the envelope caught my eye.

By signing up for paperless billing, AT&T (owned by Citi) will plant a tree on my behalf! OK, so just this moment I went ahead and enrolled in paperless billing – and for whatever reason, it was emotionally difficult, yet very easy to do so. I’m still not sure why it is so hard for me to make the transition from receiving a piece of paper in the mail that I look at once and file away forever, but it is. And, if it’s difficult for ME to do this, I can’t imagine how hard it will be to get EVERYONE to do the same thing.

So I want to use this post to really encourage people to drop their old ways and start taking baby steps toward a more environmentally-friendly existence. If you can change all of your bills into paperless statements, not only will you save paper and all that it takes to make, transport and recycle that paper, you may also have the change to get a tree planted on your behalf or save money on your next credit card balance (some companies give you a $5 or $10 credit for going paperless).

Since every little bit helps in our efforts at conservation, recycling and general environmental activism, I hope you’ll take this chance to make a difference in the world and stop the influx of paper into your life.