AIBU to think Royal Mail should not be delivering large quantities of junk mail to my door everyday

[goodnessgracious]

Why does Royal mail think it's ok to deliver a load of junk to my door everyday? I have a notice up saying 'no junk mail' but Royal Mail ignore it. I have politely spoken to the postie but he says he has to post it and continues to do so.

I understand LOCAL businesses targeting residents in this way but multi national companies using a scattergun approach, really? It's unenvironmentally friendly and over half my paper recycle paper bin is junk mail.

AIBU to be really fed up of picking up junk mail and having to dispose of it? It's not a little bit either, today I received 8 unsolicited letters and leaflets.

But why is the solution to Royal mail's profits stuffing up the environment? Surely there's another solution?

How do other countries do it?

Deutsche Post seems to be turning a profit and delivering 6 days a week.

RM is obliged to charge the same price to deliver a letter in London, where a postie can deliver 1000s in a square mile as it does to deliver one in the Highlands, where postie might have to drive miles just to deliver one or two. That business is unprofitable but RM can't refuse to do it, like their competitors can.

Therefore they are at a distinct disadvantage competitively and this is one thing they're added to their business model to try and recoup those losses.

Same with parcels. Amazon et al can pick and chose which business they're prepared to take on, RM can't.

Deutsche Post still has a near monopoly in Germany.

I see TheAlias
Thanks for the informative post

And Deutsche Post - anyone in fact - were allowed access to the UK market sooner than other european countries were opened up for competition. Great idea by Labour that was.

I have opted out. It was a pain in the arse to do as they wrote back insisting that every member of the household signed up to it, in case I was some kind of controlling harpy denying DP his right to receive junk mail .

AND IT DOESN'T BLOODY WORK. We still get all the crap that goes straight in the recycling. The postie comes while we're at work so I can't speak to him about it and I just don't have the energy to pursue it anymore. For some reason we get two of every leaflet as well.

As well as all the unaddressed stuff, there's also the likes of Virgin Fucking Media who send letters addressed to 'The Occupier'. This gets round data protection as even though they are sending them to your house, if it doesn't mention your name, it's not personal data. We get about one a month and it's such a waste as they all go straight in the bin. I complained about these once and they stopped for a while, but they've started up again.

In most places now you have to pay for a carrier bag 'for the sake of the environment' which is fair enough. But why is all this wasteful unwanted junk mail allowed to continue? Seriously?

Sorry, I was so busy ranting about unwanted junk mail, I forgot to add that RM is at a disadvantage because it is required to deliver a letter from the Isles of Scilly to Shetland within a few days for 62 pence.

I'd love to know how much that really costs to do. OK, it will offset this when people in London post 100s of letters to the next street, but when other companies are taking this away, it's not hard to see that this will lead to trouble.

I have no idea about Germany's population distribution but it doesn't appear to have any islands? Deutsche Post might not suffer in this way?

So, I just read that 9 billion items of unsolicited mail were sent in 2010 PLUS another 3.3 billion unsolicited but adressed to 'the owner' etc.

So 12.3 billion items of mail a year and rising.

I would love to know where it all ends up and how much ends up in land fill?

I agree but what would you do to keep RM in business?

Or would you prefer that some parts of the country were unable to get mail at all?

germany has approximately 25% more people but is approximately 40% bigger in size.

But Deutche Post has no competitors to speak of, it gets all the profitable business as well as the unprofitable business. RM gets all the unprofitable business and a shrinking share of the profitable stuff.

Well, if people recycle it, it won't end up in landfill.

If we want to get post, the majority of us have to put up with getting junk mail so RM can afford to provide the service.

I'd be happy to go to fewer deliveries a week, but given the almighty fuss when they dropped the second daily delivery I'm not sure how popular it would be.

The other option is to pay an exorbitant amount of money to post a letter, equally unlikely to go down well.

Road of least resistance, junk mail.

I need to send the opt-out form again. Did it a few years ago - it did work. It's frightening how much junk gets delivered and goes straight in the recycling bin - such a waste of resources.

The thing is we all end up paying for this because the council ends up paying to send this junk mail to land fill.

I really don't understand why people on here think it's a viable solution for Royal Mail.

What do you suggest OP? It is very easy to be negative.

it's viable because it keeps the royal mail being able to deliver to all these out of the way places for the price of a first class stamp. it will be gone soon though, rm being sold off bit by bit. it's very sad really. the post service should be a service but if there's money to be made, someone will sell it off.

It makes the whole postal system more viable because instead of being paid 62p to deliver a single letter to your street, they are paid £x by several companies to deliver lots of letters to your street.

I got two letters from cancer charity and two from talk talk today as well.

I recycle them. Can't be bothered to opt out.