Drowning in junk mail: Every British home gets 453 unwanted

[TrueBlueTerrier]

Drowning in junk mail: Every British home gets 453 unwanted items a year

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It's the bane of many a householder: Letterboxes rammed full of paper and a doormat covered in unwanted catalogues, takeaway menus and leaflets.

A study has revealed homes in the UK receives an average of 453 piece of unwanted mail every year.

According to research, 11billion pieces of junk mail - weighing the same as 50,000 Routemaster double-decker buses - were delivered to UK homes in 2009.
Cutting out the junk: Many householders feel they receive too much unsolicited mail - but there are steps they can take to reduce it by 50 per cent

Cutting out the junk: Many householders feel they receive too much unsolicited mail - but there are steps they can take to reduce it by 50 per cent

However, far from being helpless, there are ways to stem the flow of the unwanted tide of junk mail, according to the consumer publication Which?


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The magazine asked its members to volunteer for a experiment to see what kind of junk mail was being pushed through their letterboxes and how often it was being delivered.
BREAKDOWN OF JUNK

38 per cent leaflets from local businesses
33 per cent other commercial unaddressed mail
16 per cent addressed junk mail
10 per cent free newspapers and other magazines
3 per cent non-commercial unaddressed mail

Junk mail regularly received by Which? members included addressed, unaddressed and leaflets for local businesses.

Volunteers collected their deliveries over the period of one month, with one woman receiving a whopping 81 pieces of junk mail in a four-week period which, calculated over the year, would amount to almost 1,000 unwanted items.

Robert Rijkhoff, who runs the website http://www.stopjunkmail.org.uk" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;, analysed the mail collected by Which? members over a month-long period.

He believes householders could reduce the amount of addressed junk mail by half - if they are prepared to put in the effort.

Mr Rijkhoff told Which?: ‘It’s no secret that junk mailers hide opt-out boxes in the hope that people give them permission to do with their personal details as they please.’

Asking organisations to remove consumers' name from databases are the most popular way of reducing junk mail.

However some of these schemes only 'opt out' your address for a limited period only and consumers may need to renew to continue the service, the research added.

CUTTING OUT THE JUNK: REDUCING UNWANTED MAIL

ADDRESSED MAIL:

Sign up to the Mailing Preference Service, which reduces addressed advertisements from Direct Marketing Association (DMA) members, can reduce unwanted addressed mail by 50 per cent.
Returning junk mail to the sender is another way of reducing items. Householders should cross out their address write 'unsolicited mail, return to sender' on it instead, and put it back in the post, unstamped.
Directly contacting the mailer to ask them to stop sending junk can also work, simply by emailing, calling or via a data protection notice.

UNADDRESSED MAIL:

Contact the Your Choice Preference Scheme stops unaddressed mail from companies that are members of the DMA.
The Royal Mail Door-to-Door Opt-Out scheme can stop between 25 and 50 per cent of unaddressed junk mail being delivered by your postman - bu you need to re-register after two years.
Stickers reading 'No Junk Mail' on your letterbox can help reduce items from local businesses - but some companies could just ignore it.

PREVENTING JUNK MAIL:

Always ensure you tick boxes stating you do not want to receive information about 'other products and services' when giving your name and address to an organisation.
You can also opt-out of having your details on the edited electoral list as local councils can sell your information unless you tell them otherwise.

[POSTMAN]

Rijkhoff-jerkoff,same thing.

[Stormproof]

20 years ago I'd be lucky to get 200 letters(personal mail) a year and now they come out with the constant bullshit that the mail is dropping off

[Postman Plodd]

[johnsouthwales]

why have an opt out option at all.. an opt in option would be better.. then again, they'll send you some junk asking you if you want to opt in anyway - and defeats the exercise lol..

the onus has to be, if i want something from you, i'll tick your box. if it's blank, i don't want anything.

stupid option that is, having an option box that is only optional for a short time.. no respect at all these companies.

i had something the other day, some car insurance i think.. the envelope said on the front policy reminder.. haha i thought, i never got insurance from that company anyway in the first place

[johnsouthwales]

pizza menus have increased recently..either that or an indian takeaway. i suppose they do have their uses occasionally. plastic clothes sacks are the worst. i don't mind having the co-op leaflet fortnightly, at least that's useful information. lidl stopped delivering theirs. just the right size for food waste bin after use

[cinemasaint]

Door 2 Doors with pens, why they take up most off your bag and trying to balance them and your mail at the same time.

[slave]

You can tick boxes to not receive s**t but that doesn't stop free papers and the skip load of shitty menus, charity bags, religious gumf, house selling and betterware catalogues dropping through the doors.

I've never acted on a piece of crap, I do occasionaly browse the stuff though - in particular the menus, purely to see how many spelling mistakes they've made(quite surprising how many do).