The Global Innovation Series is presented by BMW i, a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment. It delivers more than purpose-built electric vehicles — it delivers smart mobility services. Visit bmw-i.com or follow @BMWi on Twitter.  We all lead busy lives, and the last thing we need is to come from a long day to find our mailboxes overflowing with junk mail. How many times have you received an unwanted credit card offer and thrown it out without even opening the envelope? It’s wasteful and unnecessary.  Fortunately, there are many digital options both for marketers and recipients to reduce that unwanted pile of junk mail — marketers need not waste money sending materials to uninterested consumers, and consumers can receive only things that interest them. Despite the presence of this technology, millions of tons of junk mail are sent and tossed every year — not the best way to conserve our finite paper resources.  According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. uses 71 million tons of paper each year. How much of that do you imagine comes from the junk mail and bank statements you toss or shred every day?  There are a number of reasons why businesses and people in general are still using so much paper. More often than not, it’s because the companies you interact with demand hard copies of documents or faxes. But you can break the cycle with sites and services that consolidate your paper trail into one easy-to-manage location — making your life more organized and the environment cleaner.  Still receiving hard copies of your bills? It is not only bad for the environment; there’s also the risk that one important document might get lost in the sea of paper consuming your desk or filing cabinet. It’s inefficient and it could cost you in late fees for losing track of those impending bill deadlines.  A great advantage to digital billing, aside from the organizational benefits, is that you can set services to automatically send reminders or invoices to keep your budget on track.  If you want to streamline your paper trail to next to nothing, we’ve gathered the best apps, sites and services to help you stay organized and efficient. Some of these services will help manage your addresses to make sure that you stay off unwanted mailing lists, while others keep all of your bills in one secure place.  How do you keep your junk mail under control? Let us know your thoughts in the comments.  Doxo is an free web service that enables people to connect and go paper-free with household providers in one place. It's an online tool that makes going paperless more organized.  If you opt to add all of your accounts, the Doxo "Overview" page becomes your own all-in-one personal bill center, reminder dashboard and online filing cabinet. You can also store your account information, save notes and to-dos per account and mark bills as paid to automatically file them away.  Sometimes physical mail can be unavoidable, but Zumbox can help reduce your paper trail significantly with a digital mailbox.  The service, which is built on the U.S. Postal Service's infrastructure, allows American companies and organizations that send paper materials to opt-in to Zumbox and send them to you digitally instead. Recipients can enable their account by inputting their personal or business address, which is activated by a pin number.  Catalog Choice is a non-profit that works with companies to make sure catalogs are sent to people who want them -- and not to you. The service is free, and it allows you search through a huge database and remove your name from any listing.  Ever wonder how your name ended up on a mailing list in the first place? LifeLock is a service that automatically removes your name from the ones that you don’t want to be on.  Pricing starts at $10 a month and, depending on the service you choose, LifeLock also protects you on various levels of identity theft.  When you mail paper receipts to Shoeboxed, the web service returns them as digital copies, filed into categories. You'll be less likely to lose track of important items and have more time on your hands to tackle more important matters.  Pricing starts at $9.95 per month, which will give you up to 50 items to be scanned.  This web-based software takes the masses of paper out of generating your invoices and makes it more efficient. The software is web-based, so you can access your account from any computer.  Once logged in, a complete online overview of your billing system lets you generate reports, invoice your clients and track all expenses.  Rather than receiving multiple hard copies of your bank statements and bills, you can consolidate your expenses into one place online.  What's great about Mint is that the free service categorizes your finances and sends a weekly digest, so you know exactly where and how your money is spent.  Even when you need contracts or documents signed, you can eliminate paper with EasySign. Using your finger or a stylus, you can send and sign Word docs, PDFs, JPEGs and more on your iPhone, iPad or Android device.  You have the option to add three signatures per document. Then, you can send it securely or import to Dropbox or Box.net.  Yes, plenty of people are still faxing bills and documents -- amounting to an unacceptable amount of paper every day.  Don't fall into the same trap. HelloFax is a web service that lets you send and receive faxes -- in PDF, text file, Word document or image format -- from your computer.  The Global Innovation Series is presented by BMW i, a new concept dedicated to providing mobility solutions for the urban environment. It delivers more than purpose-built electric vehicles; it delivers smart mobility services within and beyond the car. Visit bmw-i.com or follow @BMWi on Twitter.  Are you an innovative entrepreneur? Submit your pitch to BMW i Ventures, a mobility and tech venture capital company.  Image Courtesy of iStockphoto, NoDerog
Is your paper trail too massive to manage? Check out these tools to cut out your unwanted mail.