To think junk mail should be banned.

[Stormwhale]

We receive so much junk mail in the post, far more than our actual letters. All of it goes straight in the recycling or more annoyingly in the normal bin if it isn't recyclable. It is so unnecessary in this day and age, and so wasteful. None of it is addressed to us, so its not from us using their services, just random.

In a world where we are destroying our planet, it seems such a wasteful thing to do. I would like to see it banned. Aibu?

Not unreasonable at all. It is really annoying,.

We have a sign on the door. It reduces the amount… somewhat.

I thought it was banned. We don't get any. Just the occasional Dominos pizza leaflet with vouchers on it, and a building company has send leaflets 2 or 3 times trying to peddle their £300K '1-bed-town-apartments' for the over 55s, next to a busy A road, and a massive Tesco store. No real proper junk mail though. Not for about 4 or 5 years. I'm sure a law came in a few years ago prohibiting it, and also prohibiting 'nuisance 'calls.'

It's possible to opt out with Royal Mail which helps a bit in my experience personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/293/~/how-do-i-opt-out-of-receiving-any-leaflets-or-unaddressed-promotional-material%3F
My pet hate is magazines that are stuffed with unnecessary ' bumf' that goes straight into the recycling bin even where the organisation is supposedly committed to the protecting the environment (National Trust and Gardeners World to name two)

@cortex10

It's possible to opt out with Royal Mail which helps a bit in my experience personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/293/~/how-do-i-opt-out-of-receiving-any-leaflets-or-unaddressed-promotional-material%3F My pet hate is magazines that are stuffed with unnecessary ' bumf' that goes straight into the recycling bin even where the organisation is supposedly committed to the protecting the environment (National Trust and Gardeners World to name two)

I barely get any. I've done this opt out and also if any company sends me some, I email them to delete all my details.

Absolutely.

I frequently have to search through the things delivered by the postman/woman to find my actual letters as there is so much junk.

It goes from my letterbox straight into the recycling bin, it's so wasteful.

I often wonder how many actual responses these companies get from their mailshots; if most people are like me it will be precious few.

Yanbu, We also have a sign on the door saying no junk mail, leaflets or cold callers but people still put stuff through and cold call! The Royal Mail opt-out helped though. Also I made a complaint to Virgin Media about the excessive amount that they were sending us stuff (several times a week) and they stopped, so if you're getting stuff from the same companies a lot that's also worth a try.

YANBU. It annoys the crap out of me. Same as when I worked in retail and we had to destroy items, rather than sell them (even to staff) at a discount because it “damages the brand”. There’s so much waste through things like this, yet my area want to bring in a “clean air zone” which will cost small businesses a lot of money.

Issue with me is the energy company who send letters to the previous occupier over 20 years after she left. Spent 2 years ending them back marked up so they'd take her off their mailing list but to no avail.

100% it should absolutely be banned. It's so incredibly wasteful.

I will look into the royal mail thing thank you. It just makes me so angry to have to bin all this crap that we haven't asked for and don't need. I have never once looked at a piece of junk mail and thought I would go and buy the product. What is the point?

@cortex10

It's possible to opt out with Royal Mail which helps a bit in my experience personal.help.royalmail.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/293/~/how-do-i-opt-out-of-receiving-any-leaflets-or-unaddressed-promotional-material%3F My pet hate is magazines that are stuffed with unnecessary ' bumf' that goes straight into the recycling bin even where the organisation is supposedly committed to the protecting the environment (National Trust and Gardeners World to name two)

This is interesting. Where I live, it's the bleeding postman that puts most of it through. I think he gets more money on the side from it. Two birds as it were.

@Stormwhale

I will look into the royal mail thing thank you. It just makes me so angry to have to bin all this crap that we haven't asked for and don't need. I have never once looked at a piece of junk mail and thought I would go and buy the product. What is the point?

But print marketing clearly has its place, or why would companies spend their marketing budget on it? It reaches people who don't spend a lot of time online, for example.

You can't advocate for stuff to be banned on the grounds that it's not something that interests you

@EricScrantona companies pay the Royal Mail (a lot!) to deliver it, it's not that your local postie is getting an extra £20 for doing it.

The percentage of people who actually require this type of marketing must be minescule. That is a huge amount of waste for very little reason.

Yes, I would like it to be made illegal. Same with paper catalogues. They are hardly necessary now (except perhaps for the elderly who don't have Internet access.)

Perhaps it could be a Mumsnet campaign?

Every type of marketing is a numbers game though, unless you've very highly targeting a segment of the population. TV adverts, radio adverts, Google ads, social media ads, newspaper ads and editorial PR pieces, billboards, pitchside hoardings...all of them are in front of tens of thousands of people. This isn't really that different.

@Slingingcontest

Yes, I would like it to be made illegal. Same with paper catalogues. They are hardly necessary now (except perhaps for the elderly who don't have Internet access.)

And people living in poverty who don't have internet access.

And people living in poverty who don't have internet access.

Yes of course.

We seem to get loads, some from the postman and done from leafleters. Yesterday we had a plastic one exactly like a credit card advertising fake grass. I wanted to punch something. I try so hard to recycle, and reduce what plastic comes into the house etc, and companies are advertising their hideous products on plastic cards.

Absolutely! It is insane sometimes the amount of crap that comes through the door. I didn't ask for this? And so much of it can't even be recycled. Crazy during these times of global warming for companies to be creating totally unnecessary waste.

@Slingingcontest

Yes, I would like it to be made illegal. Same with paper catalogues. They are hardly necessary now (except perhaps for the elderly who don't have Internet access.)

By that logic you'd ban the printing of newspapers, magazines and books, because they could be found online. Cash should be scrapped because people can pay by card or phone.

I don't particularly like junk mail, but it's not a big problem, it just goes straight in the bin. But I dislike "sledgehammer to crack a nut" solutions because it eventually leads to more issues than it solves.

You can do something with the electoral roll as well, it's something like moving off the open register so companies can't purchase your details. We no longer have any addressed junk mail. Still the odd dominos leaflet but that's it.

As a postie I can tell you that we certainly don't get any extra pay for delivering all that junk, although Royal Mail make plenty from it. It causes us a lot of extra work and it's embarrassing having to hand it to people knowing full well they don't want it. The more people who opt out the better.