Dear Harry,

The Christmas season is upon us. You can tell by the amount of junkmail in our mail box. Is there some way that I can get them to stop. -- Flyen Mad

Dear Flyen Mad:

If you don't want it and won't read it, junk mail becomes very wasteful. Here are a couple of ways to stop it. You can't eliminate it all, but you can minimize it. 1. Direct marketing companies that you do business with rent their customer lists to other direct marketing companies. Don't deal with them and you won't be on their lists. 2. You can write the Canadian Marketing Association at 607-1 Concorde Gate, Don Mills, Ont. M3C 3N6 and ask to be removed from their list. 3. In the city here you can call Canadian Publishers at 949-6100. They are very friendly. They will remove you from their delivery list and provide you with a sticker for your mailbox. The only problem is that they say that this action will also remove you from their Community list. Nice catch-22 boys! And, by the way, the other three distribution services we contacted told us that they have no such cancellation policy.

Dear Harry,

I am an asthmatic. I find moth balls bother my breathing. What is in them and is there something else I could use as an alternative? -- Asthmatic

Dear Asthmatic,

First of all, if you are having difficulty breathing, consult your doctor, and get rid of the moth balls. Give them to someone you don't like or, even better, to a hazardous waste collection site. Moth balls contain paradich lobenzene and napthalene, both very toxic. Some alternatives to using them are lavendar, flowers, cedar chips or sackets with dried tansies (not pansies!).

Dear Harry,

People are talking more and more about the environment. We eat out a lot and see plenty of styrofoam, plastics and paper going to our dump from restaurants. What can be done? -- Tired of eating garbage

Dear Tired:

You're right. A lot of restaurants use convenient packaging for their condiments. Cream in individual servings is a real waste. These should be served in small pitchers, paper napkins can be cloth. Plastic cutlery can be washable. Sugar can be served from a large container rather than in individual packets. Jams, jellies, etc., can also be served from larger containers. Syrup, the same thing. Request all of these. It's time our favourite restaurants helped to save our environment. Food waste makes up nearly 8% of our landfill space.

In the Brazilian rain forest, one acre of land is being burned up every 9 seconds. This horrible destruction has got to stop! Here in our own backyard, between logging and land clearing, we are consuming one acre of land every 12 seconds. They say people who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones. Maybe we should start cleaning up our houses first.