For day 41 of our carbon fast we’re stopping junk mail. This is one of my favourite things to do!
About 21 billion items (550,000 tonnes) of junk mail are sent out every year in the UK which is an awful lot of trees, paper, transportation and goodness knows what else.
The process for stopping junk mail in the UK is 4-fold because there are various types of junk mail sent out.
If a particular company is sending mail that you do not want, simply contact that company direct and ask them to stop. They are obliged to do so by law.
Around 3.4 billion items of addressed direct mail is sent out every year which uses 180,000 tonnes of paper.
The Mail Preference Service (MPS) will stop 95% of addressed direct mail once you register with them.
Go to the MPS and register for free.
Around 13 billion items of unaddressed direct mail are sent out yearly.
If you want to stop leaflets and unaddressed mail being delivered by Royal Mail send an email to [email protected] and request their ‘door-to-door opt-out form’.
For junk mail that has nothing to do with Royal Mail, such as leaflet drops from local companies and takeaway menus, you’ll need to put a sticker on your letter box saying “No commercial leaflets” or similar.
Remember, that removing your name from these databases only lasts for 2 years – you need to reapply every 2 years to stop that junk mail.
What about you – how much junk mail do you get each week?
I don’t get much junk mail now since I started to put everything they sent me back into the pre-paid envelopes and post it back to them. I figured that way they got their junk back and paid to have it returned.
I also wrote ‘remove me from your database as per the Date Protection Act’ and ‘no more junk mail!’ on anything I could. I can’t think of the last time I got something so it must have worked!
@Preseli Mags: I send stuff back too, Mags, although some companies are still very persistent. Sounds like things work well for you.