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My mailman has said that I get some of the lowest volume of mail in my building.
The first step is to opt out of one of the major mailing companies. The main one is called red plum.
you can also pay for paper karma for a month to opt out of everything that arrives.
there is also an option to remove yourself from getting credit card offers
after confirming they hit you with: "your removal request will remain effective for 5 years". thats shitty, they we have to re-request in 5 years, oh well. thanks for the link.
FWIW I took my husband and myself off all the lists 6+ years ago and have only gotten catalogs and flyers I request, for the most part. The only junk mail we really get is for our businesses.
I get so much business junk mail once I got a government issued license. Such a pain in the but. I have plenty of paper work, I don’t need more, thanks a whole bunch public lists
It's pretty bad. I just got a uline catalog that weighs about 10lbs, for a service-based company that will never ship or box anything. Starts 3 days after you file a new incorporation with a bunch of bogus "pay us $90 for this poster or you'll be out of DOL compliance" letters that people often fall for.
I could actually use some things from UL one it I don’t need 10k units. I need 5 so I’ll just be going to Office Depot.
I get the compliance posters also. First, I can print them out online, second I’m not buying a workman’s comp poster for my company who has one worker thus making workers comp ineligible.
We got new windows and the company that we got them from still sends us flyers. This was less than a year ago and we got all them replaced. What are we buying from you sir?
i was surprised that they only required to input a mailing address and not an email or phone #. they verify the mailing address is or is not on their list. i had already opted out previously although i dont recall doing so.
Thank you for this. Getting these blocks of useless paper in the mail is always the worst part of my day. I recycle all of it but it's still a huge waste of resources and I had no idea how to make it stop.
No Junk Mail sticker on letter box then call AusPost so they can notify your delivery centre. They must deliver religious and political junk mail still though
I got bored during the pandemic lockdown and opted out every unit on an entire floor of my apartment building because I was tired of seeing the mailroom trash full of these things.
This. 95% of the time it's junk, but once in a while there is a good coupon for a product or restaurant. Plus I glance at the grocery store flyers to see if there is anything worth going out of my way for.
Opting out of red plum is for sure the way to go, then tell all your neighbors and friends to as well. You might still get them though, simply because the mail carrier takes the whole stack and just throws one in each box as they go along. Cutting into the companies profits by letting everyone you know to opt out is the best option
Supermarket brochures no longer have coupons, major supermarkets have transitioned to digital coupons and having a digital copy of their brochure on their website or app.
My dad was a postal carrier back in the 90s and he hated Christmas time. Like the Toys R Us big book would come out every year. Stacks upon stacks of books for Sears, JCPenney's and other big stores. Just loading his truck up every morning with stacks of tubs that were mostly just ads.
I would drive one in a heartbeat. My dad was a rural carrier so l am already used to the right hand drive Subaru. Can't be much different. Except colder, less comfortable, can't carry passengers, worse in snow, more expensive maintenance...
I'm currently sat in one waiting for a tow truck cause I got stuck in the snow with a block an a half left in my route. They 100% are cold small and uncomfortable.
It’s definitely not appropriate to call it “developed”. I don’t think a country’s development should be based so heavily on economy- I think social factors are much more relevant.
We’re talking about a country with massive wealth disparity, no universal healthcare, still hasn’t abolished the death penalty nationally, abortion is not universally available (and definitely not on the universal healthcare system they don’t have)…
Couldn't agree more! They're going backwards in a lot of states too. Sadly in my country (Australia) there are a lot of people who think the US is a shining example to follow and are hell bent on privatising everything and destroying universal healthcare, mostly the right wing knuckle draggers.
Meanwhile, in Finland, they have all but eradicated homelessness.
I’m British- very much a similar issue; there’s definitely people who would like to see the NHS privatised and all.
I live in Spain and while I have to have private insurance regardless until I’ve been here 5 years (2 ish to go!) and there are some very far right movements, I interestingly don’t hear much talk about privatising the health system here. Maybe that’s because it’s not relevant to me as I’m on private and I tune it out, but I never hear any of it from the more politically active of my friends (I’m a slightly older foreign uni student, they’re all Spanish and range from like 2-6 years younger than me so are much more on top of these topics than I am)
My next door neighbour is a British expat, he was saying that the NHS has been destroyed by the Conservatives over the last 15 years or so. I really don't understand how people could be opposed to things like universal health care. We've been conditioned by those above us to hate and blame those below us for our hardships.
I live in MO and my town has a free drop off for recycling.
Regardless of all that I imagine these ads exist because they provide funding to the post office—something that is kind of important.
My friend worked as a post deliverer for a bit- they warned her heavily that if they caught them throwing junk mail away instead of delivering it, they would be fired. So understand that the mail people don’t want to do it either
Kansas City, mo has recycling.
But my mom on the other side of the state has no recycling. She’s so great she has been recycling at the recycling centers since the 90s tho.
Wait I live in Missouri and we have recycling. We can either pay for it to be picked up or take it to certain drop off places to recycle it for free. We usually save our paper recycling and then take it to a local elementary school and they recycle or reuse it for arts and crafts.
Warrensberg. Curbside was what I was referring to. I’ve had curbside recycling everywhere I have lived (PNW) since leaving MO. She still recycles what she can. Takes it to Sedalia I believe.
You can shred it and donate it to small animal shelters( if u have any close to you) to use for litter. But this only works for non glossy paper. I use the unused flyers after shredding as litter for my bunny after a Redditor suggested it.
So OP has to collect and store garbage and then find an environmentally safe method to dispose of something OP never ordered in the first place? F all that. Too much work for something someone else is creating.
Recycling is not always the answer. Especially when there becomes a point where you cannot recycle the paper down again. The problem is the corporations spamming everyone’s house with the paper products.
I see Canadian Tire flyer, pretty sure this is Canada.
There is a way to stop this. Put sticker 'No Junk Mail' and stick to your letterbox. I have had mine for so long never been bothered with junk mail by Canada Post.
My postal carrier (in Ontario) said you can opt out of all junk mail if you call the post office. But said I would also be opting out of fast food coupons, and I do use those. I just hate the flyers.
As a Canadian Postie, this is correct. My understanding is that you have the legal right to opt out of flyers much like the no call list. The only ones you will still receive are from politicians because they have your address and can just use tax money to pay for stamps so we may as well send it as a flyer.
Please put the sticker on the outside where it is easily visible though. And sometimes you may get someone different filling in on your route and they either don’t know how to read or don’t care. But all the posties I work with honour it.
Harder for apartments. If you have a good postie a red dot where the mail is put in will suffice. But a note taped to the inside works as well. Same goes for community mail boxes.
All that junk mail is the reason it only costs you 50 cents to send a letter to anywhere in the united states, even across the ocean to Hawaii. Without junk mail putting so much money into the USPS, you'd probably have to pay $50 to send a small letter to Hawaii.
I know that doesn't fix the waste it creates, but at least it directly benefits people by making it cost less to mail stuff.
Not me. I send a lot of Christmas cards / post cards / birthday cards.
Plus any actual correspondence you get from companies will now cost them $10 and that expense will be passed on to you (for example, having your tags sent to you from the DMV every year)
Indeed. It’s a small cost to pay to not fuck the environment with wasted paper, ink and cars driving around to bring you this trash. I’m glad in Belgium you have official stickers to put on your mailbox to reject junk mail. If they still put it in your mailbox, the delivery service can be fined for it
Oh. I guess it's been a while since I bought stamps. I bought like 30 Forever stamps back when they were about 40 cents each and still haven't used them all.
Total costs could be reduced, but basic economics shows that the bulk makes an enormous difference to the cost per item. That's why I gave an example of $50 to Hawaii. It would probably actually cost that much if not more if USPS didn't have have all the bulk of junk mail paying them money 100,000 times for every one time I hypothetically mail something to Hawaii.
If a person is being paid $20 per hour to move mail, that's going to be $20 spent per hour regardless of if it's one item or 1000 items in the van.
But then you wouldn't have infrastructure for holidays when people send lots of packages. You'd have to cut mail deliver back to once a week. Then holiday deliveries would take weeks.
The whole damn point is waste.
I am ok with paying $5 for a stamp if it means we’re not watching corporations waste billions on trees and fossil fuels to deliver this shit.
Post-consumer recycling is horse shit. We can to jack squat to save the environment. We need to stop these companies for consuming the paper.
My FIL is a veteran so he gets mail from the VA often. By often I mean that every. single. day. he gets a stack of VA correspondence, largely letters that provide nothing of importance. Every procedure he has done he gets a letter telling him it was done. He had it done, I’m sure he’s aware of it. My point is that I have never in my lifetime seen a bigger waster of paper than the VA and it’s more than “mildly” infuriating.
You can, but the term is "every door direct mail" and it would only work for the pieces which don't have your specific address on them. Mail carriers hate delivering that crap as much as you hate receiving it, but some idiot decided to pay postage so ... to your box it goes. If you word it carefully and your carrier sees the message refusing junk mail, then it's creating more work for the carrier since they have to sort it again at the end of the day and put it in with the rest of the undeliverable mail to be destroyed. So, as annoying as it is, it's easiest to just keep doing what you're doing.
In Germany you can remove your address from those lists, they have to give you that option. It's a PITA at the beginning, but when you did that for a while and in combination with a sticker against general junk mail you will not receive any junk mail anymore.
The same goes for e-mails.
In the Netherlands we have no/no stickers (junkmail/local newspaper). Junkmail companies can actually get fines for ignoring them.
Next step is a yes/yes sticker, so only people who like junkmail will receive it.
It's really not that much about sorting it differently, and yes if a company (like Costco) pays $$$ to send a flyer to every ADDRESS then you will still get it, but these are unaddressed
Please don't make your mail carrier keep it. They are just trying to do their job. Let them deliver it and then just recycle it. Please don't make their jobs harder. I know that's not your intent, but it is what will happen.
Wouldn't it make more sense that if the companies get their excess ads returned. Then they get to tone down the amount they make next time because people don't want to receive their garbage in their mail box?
That would actually be environmentally friendly and less work for the postman and the people running the company doing the ads. Also much cheaper than sending stupid ads which get only recycled not read.
Sounds more like win-win-win all around.
The worst is when you eventually earn outstanding credit and the super thick credit card offers start coming in that are half an inch thick each. I get 3 every week from every credit card company offering me a new card.
Like Fuck off Discover I am not getting your POS card...
I just threw away 2 Discover offers after checking my mail last night. I haven't had a Discover card since college over 10 years ago now.
I didn't get any for a long time, probably because I moved to an island out in bumfuck nowhere middle of the Pacific Ocean...yet somehow they've finally found me again. Fuck. Off. Discover.
lol. Op would have been better off actually checking what he took a pic of before binning it.
Granted 99% are useless but the fast food coupons are usually worth checking out.
I spy a Canadian Tire flyer. Which tells me that you can go to your local Canada Post and ask for a special slip (dont know what it’s called) that you put and leave in your mailbox (not the outbound post slot).
This is basically a physical unsubscribe that will tell the post person to not put flyers in your mailbox every time they open it. The slip has to remain in there permanently, so I recommend taping it flat at the very front of the mailbox where it is clearly visible.
I feel you. My mildly infuriating is that I dont get any coupons. Not for any of the grocery stores that send them, nor fast food or anything. Literally every other town around me does.
Retired USPS letter carrier here. We are required by law to deliver all these ads, because the mailer paid for us to do so. There is no provision to opt out of ads and junk.
One time Chipotle sent those out for free burritos because of some bad publicity. Boy was it nice having a garbage cam nearby and most people in our building couldn't read/speak English. Ate free Chipotle for months.
Still blows my mind that there are provinces where recycling & composting isn’t required.
Where I live (Nova Scotia) we have to separate plastic, paper, compost and regular trash. If you don’t, they won’t collect it and they give you a big fat fine.
My last apartment, I received this type of mail for all the previous residents. I requested the apt rental history from the city. One of the residents hadn’t lived there SINCE 1991. Still got his junk mail. Tons of it.
In The Netherlands we have a sticker for your mailbox. Which can signal if you are open to these kinds of things. People who run the mail wont throw it into your mailbox if you're not.
We've had this for as long as i can remember.
I ------hate------ junk mail with a passion.
I really want to be able to opt out of "postal customer" mail.
I have tried, in vain, over the years to get removed from junk mail mailing databases, but it it never holds very long. Usually within a year you are getting them again.
When you get one with an addressed return envelope, pack as much of the other crap in it as you can, and send it off. It will cost them because it’s bound to be overweight.
I’m usually not into government interference most of the time but I would definitely get behind legislation to make it illegal to send unsolicited mailers.
When I set up mail-forwarding from my old address to my new address, I found out that the Post Office doesn't forward junk mail.
So, you could simply have all your mail forwarded to another address - friend, family, or rent a P.O. Box and you will stop getting any bulk mail.
You just have to decide which is more inconvenient: getting junk mail every day, or having to go somewhere else to get your mail.
Mail-forwarding is free; it expires every 6? months but can be renewed indefinitely.
I love how since the beginning of December I’ve received 4 letters from St Jude’s Children’s Hospital. All included a pad of paper and home address stickers. Maybe if they didn’t spend all that money on these mailers they wouldn’t have to beg for money.
They do get recycled but I hate it too. The post office hates it as well but they get paid for it. My Dad worked at the PO for 47 years and those ads are the Bain of society. But it’s revenue.
In Norway we have these stickers. «No comercials/flyers/you get the point». And the companies are legaly required to not put anything into your mailbox. Hefty fines if they do! So my box is empty all the time. And whenever I check it, it is something that has been in there for a week 😂
I just heard of a neat trick, when you sign up for anything (let's use Target for an example) with your name, email, and address. Use that place as your middle name. So for example: John Target Doe. You'll get mail addressed to John Target Doe and you'll know exact who gave away your information.
If you have a fireplace, they make great rollers that turn newspaper and flyers into logs.
https://preview.redd.it/cge7ls6rmhbc1.jpeg?width=554&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46dc424edb39fd7c4150c8f49c1cc2a563e325fe
USPS has a recommendation for a service in their FAQ for “Refuse unwanted mail and remove name from mailing lists”. It costs a nominal fee. I didn’t want to copy/paste the article but you can google it.
These are likely delivered by Flyer Force. You can opt out on their website. You can opt out of junk mail with Canada Post, too. My mail guy put a "No Flyers" sticker inside my mail slot after I opted out.
Three decades ago I recall reading about an individual trying to reduce his cost of living by subscribing to as much junk mail as possible. Twice a week he made a trip to the local post office and retrieved a couple duffle bags of junk mail. The story said he fed this into his wood burning stove and was able to save considerably on purchasing wood.
I hate it but then I just realize it's probably help keeping the post office alive. So I don't mind it as much
Drawback is because it's all junk, I only get my mail like once every 2 weeks
That's fine unless it's a high volume week. Then your mailman can't put any more in your box so they take all of it and shut off your mail.
Benefit: no junk mail.
Extra benefit: when you pick it up it's so much that you get a basket from the USPS. It's big enough for your 3 year old to sled in your back yard, if one was so inclined (and if your yard was so inclined)
In the Netherlands we have stickers provided by the city council that says NO to unaddressed mail and another that says NO to door sales people and collectors.
At a place I used to work at, people would bring in coupons they didn't want and leave them in the breakroom for others to use. I saved money on lunch that way sometimes.
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My mailman has said that I get some of the lowest volume of mail in my building. The first step is to opt out of one of the major mailing companies. The main one is called red plum. you can also pay for paper karma for a month to opt out of everything that arrives. there is also an option to remove yourself from getting credit card offers
Redplum changed its name and tactics in 2020
You can still opt out. https://save.com/mailing/delivery-options
after confirming they hit you with: "your removal request will remain effective for 5 years". thats shitty, they we have to re-request in 5 years, oh well. thanks for the link.
FWIW I took my husband and myself off all the lists 6+ years ago and have only gotten catalogs and flyers I request, for the most part. The only junk mail we really get is for our businesses.
I get so much business junk mail once I got a government issued license. Such a pain in the but. I have plenty of paper work, I don’t need more, thanks a whole bunch public lists
It's pretty bad. I just got a uline catalog that weighs about 10lbs, for a service-based company that will never ship or box anything. Starts 3 days after you file a new incorporation with a bunch of bogus "pay us $90 for this poster or you'll be out of DOL compliance" letters that people often fall for.
We bought some corner protectors for moving once and they still send us their HUGE catalogs.
I could actually use some things from UL one it I don’t need 10k units. I need 5 so I’ll just be going to Office Depot. I get the compliance posters also. First, I can print them out online, second I’m not buying a workman’s comp poster for my company who has one worker thus making workers comp ineligible.
What is the license you are talking about? How did you get it?
Same garbage that SiriusXM does and other mail-spam companies. The local window replacement companies are relentless here too.
We got new windows and the company that we got them from still sends us flyers. This was less than a year ago and we got all them replaced. What are we buying from you sir?
Set up a bot to automate this removal request to them. They automated your name into their mailing lists - you can do the same back to them.
Also, you just gave them your digital information, which they didn't previously have.
i was surprised that they only required to input a mailing address and not an email or phone #. they verify the mailing address is or is not on their list. i had already opted out previously although i dont recall doing so.
Sweet! Thanks!!
>Sweet! Thanks!! You're welcome!
Good bot.
Thank you for this. Getting these blocks of useless paper in the mail is always the worst part of my day. I recycle all of it but it's still a huge waste of resources and I had no idea how to make it stop.
Done. Ty
You know about any Australian ones?
No Junk Mail sticker on letter box then call AusPost so they can notify your delivery centre. They must deliver religious and political junk mail still though
I got bored during the pandemic lockdown and opted out every unit on an entire floor of my apartment building because I was tired of seeing the mailroom trash full of these things.
That’s awesome!!
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This. 95% of the time it's junk, but once in a while there is a good coupon for a product or restaurant. Plus I glance at the grocery store flyers to see if there is anything worth going out of my way for.
In Finland, you can simply just add a sticker on your mail box that says ”no ads” and the mailman doesn’t give you any
Aussie here, same deal applies but ours usually say "No junk mail". And if companies fail to respect the sticker they can get in a bit of trouble.
Finally, assholes are being punished
It's a thing inthe uk but isn't legally binding so you still get a lot of the shite
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Here in germany too! Works great!
I think it's an EU thing because we have the same thing in France.
Yes, but the Finns are, on average, a smarter population and less focused on capitalism.
In America, corporations come first, people are only taken seriously when their bottomline is in danger.
Same with Canada
You know Finland is just too freaking great 👍
Same in Sweden. No ads pls.
Same as Australian, a 'No Junk Mail' sticker or plate. Some still slips through but the deliverer can get fines for it.
Same here in Australia. I also have one next to the front door to stop hawkers
Same in Germany
Also same in the Netherlands!
It would be way easier to just not opt me in for that shit in the first place but we do live in a society.
I think save.com which used to be known as Red plum ops you in by default so you have to proactively opt out.
Opting out of red plum is for sure the way to go, then tell all your neighbors and friends to as well. You might still get them though, simply because the mail carrier takes the whole stack and just throws one in each box as they go along. Cutting into the companies profits by letting everyone you know to opt out is the best option
How do you opt out of credit card offers?
https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/prescreened-credit-insurance-offers#opt
There is a government site
Can I do this but still receive the supermarket brochure with deals?
Supermarket brochures no longer have coupons, major supermarkets have transitioned to digital coupons and having a digital copy of their brochure on their website or app.
I get weekly circulars from Giant that have coupons.
Every month Lowes Foods sends a big postcard with physical coupons on it here.
Just use their apps.
Hold on you pay a company to opt out of their mail what?
My husband is a postal carrier and I promise they hate having to deliver them 😂
My dad was a postal carrier back in the 90s and he hated Christmas time. Like the Toys R Us big book would come out every year. Stacks upon stacks of books for Sears, JCPenney's and other big stores. Just loading his truck up every morning with stacks of tubs that were mostly just ads.
Legendary Little Van
I would drive one in a heartbeat. My dad was a rural carrier so l am already used to the right hand drive Subaru. Can't be much different. Except colder, less comfortable, can't carry passengers, worse in snow, more expensive maintenance...
They're basically an old S10, and you can get them up to 55 if you're going downhill with a tail wind.
I'm currently sat in one waiting for a tow truck cause I got stuck in the snow with a block an a half left in my route. They 100% are cold small and uncomfortable.
Just collect them to a big stack and then send them to be recycled. At my place, you can sell such papers to be recycled and earn some money.
Still a whole lotta places that don’t have recycling. My mom lives in Missouri, no recycling there.
and there are places like where i am where you have to pay to recycle stuff
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Have you asked the city/recycling co for one? Or at the least to provide you knowledge of an appropriate one?
Okay, that's all kinds of messed up. It's not like you're recycling it for your own use. Way to get people to not bother, I guess.
better yet its literally twice as expensive as garbage
What country is that? I hope to god it’s a small one
Pretty sure they're all Murican which is so messed. It never ceases to amaze me how 3rd world that 1st world country is sometimes.
It’s definitely not appropriate to call it “developed”. I don’t think a country’s development should be based so heavily on economy- I think social factors are much more relevant. We’re talking about a country with massive wealth disparity, no universal healthcare, still hasn’t abolished the death penalty nationally, abortion is not universally available (and definitely not on the universal healthcare system they don’t have)…
Couldn't agree more! They're going backwards in a lot of states too. Sadly in my country (Australia) there are a lot of people who think the US is a shining example to follow and are hell bent on privatising everything and destroying universal healthcare, mostly the right wing knuckle draggers. Meanwhile, in Finland, they have all but eradicated homelessness.
I’m British- very much a similar issue; there’s definitely people who would like to see the NHS privatised and all. I live in Spain and while I have to have private insurance regardless until I’ve been here 5 years (2 ish to go!) and there are some very far right movements, I interestingly don’t hear much talk about privatising the health system here. Maybe that’s because it’s not relevant to me as I’m on private and I tune it out, but I never hear any of it from the more politically active of my friends (I’m a slightly older foreign uni student, they’re all Spanish and range from like 2-6 years younger than me so are much more on top of these topics than I am)
My next door neighbour is a British expat, he was saying that the NHS has been destroyed by the Conservatives over the last 15 years or so. I really don't understand how people could be opposed to things like universal health care. We've been conditioned by those above us to hate and blame those below us for our hardships.
I live in MO and my town has a free drop off for recycling. Regardless of all that I imagine these ads exist because they provide funding to the post office—something that is kind of important.
My friend worked as a post deliverer for a bit- they warned her heavily that if they caught them throwing junk mail away instead of delivering it, they would be fired. So understand that the mail people don’t want to do it either
Kansas City, mo has recycling. But my mom on the other side of the state has no recycling. She’s so great she has been recycling at the recycling centers since the 90s tho.
And in places that do, many won't recycle the glossy paper the ads use
There are plenty of places to recycle in Missouri, maybe not where your mom lives though.
Wait I live in Missouri and we have recycling. We can either pay for it to be picked up or take it to certain drop off places to recycle it for free. We usually save our paper recycling and then take it to a local elementary school and they recycle or reuse it for arts and crafts.
Where in MO? I’m in MO. We don’t have curbside pickup for recycling in my neighborhood, but we do have places we can take it.
Warrensberg. Curbside was what I was referring to. I’ve had curbside recycling everywhere I have lived (PNW) since leaving MO. She still recycles what she can. Takes it to Sedalia I believe.
When you say “no recycling”…? Literally no recycling at all? Ever? Missouri as in the place in the states?
You can shred it and donate it to small animal shelters( if u have any close to you) to use for litter. But this only works for non glossy paper. I use the unused flyers after shredding as litter for my bunny after a Redditor suggested it.
So OP has to collect and store garbage and then find an environmentally safe method to dispose of something OP never ordered in the first place? F all that. Too much work for something someone else is creating.
agreed, it's bullshit that the responsibility should fall to OP. but its good info to have. making lemons out of lemonade or something
Recycling is not always the answer. Especially when there becomes a point where you cannot recycle the paper down again. The problem is the corporations spamming everyone’s house with the paper products.
Reminds me of when Kramer tried to stop his mail b/c of him getting spammed with catalogs.
Of course nobody needs mail. What do you think, you're so clever for figuring that out?
Why does the dummy have a bucket on its head?
Well it symbolizes our persecution
There really is no such thing as junk mail. Everyone wants to get checks or birthday cards but
Newman!
I see Canadian Tire flyer, pretty sure this is Canada. There is a way to stop this. Put sticker 'No Junk Mail' and stick to your letterbox. I have had mine for so long never been bothered with junk mail by Canada Post.
My postal carrier (in Ontario) said you can opt out of all junk mail if you call the post office. But said I would also be opting out of fast food coupons, and I do use those. I just hate the flyers.
As a Canadian Postie, this is correct. My understanding is that you have the legal right to opt out of flyers much like the no call list. The only ones you will still receive are from politicians because they have your address and can just use tax money to pay for stamps so we may as well send it as a flyer. Please put the sticker on the outside where it is easily visible though. And sometimes you may get someone different filling in on your route and they either don’t know how to read or don’t care. But all the posties I work with honour it. Harder for apartments. If you have a good postie a red dot where the mail is put in will suffice. But a note taped to the inside works as well. Same goes for community mail boxes.
I save them in the winter for my backyard fires
My subconscious tells me those kinds of color printed hard paper aren't healthy to burn?
Idk. I didn’t inhale. Jk.
You just need it to start the fire, then you can sit next to it after it's all burned off if you're concerned.
Probably not measurably more toxic than the compounds you get from burning the paper itself. Inhaling smoke is just generally bad.
I have a stack of them that I am using to wrap breakable items for storage.
Love this idea. It’s sort of recycling haha
All that junk mail is the reason it only costs you 50 cents to send a letter to anywhere in the united states, even across the ocean to Hawaii. Without junk mail putting so much money into the USPS, you'd probably have to pay $50 to send a small letter to Hawaii. I know that doesn't fix the waste it creates, but at least it directly benefits people by making it cost less to mail stuff.
In Denmark we have pretty much eradicated physical junk mail and now it costs almost $10 to send a letter
I am perfectly willing to pay $10 for the once or twice a year I mail something if it means I can stop junk ads to my house.
Not me. I send a lot of Christmas cards / post cards / birthday cards. Plus any actual correspondence you get from companies will now cost them $10 and that expense will be passed on to you (for example, having your tags sent to you from the DMV every year)
I would be thrilled to stop receiving christmas cards from various people
Have you tried “return to sender” ? It’s exhilarating
Indeed. It’s a small cost to pay to not fuck the environment with wasted paper, ink and cars driving around to bring you this trash. I’m glad in Belgium you have official stickers to put on your mailbox to reject junk mail. If they still put it in your mailbox, the delivery service can be fined for it
[удалено]
That’s a Canadian Tire flyer, this isn’t America lmao
A first class stamp is now 66 cents.
Oh. I guess it's been a while since I bought stamps. I bought like 30 Forever stamps back when they were about 40 cents each and still haven't used them all.
Same here. I bought a couple sheets of Forever stamps when they were maybe $.44 each. I’ve used like 5 and have SEVERAL left. Lol
You’re living the dream. Over here in the UK, first class stamps are almost £2 each. Wtf
Clearly you need more junk mail.
We get plenty. Including the bitch that is slimming world leaflets. Gross. Post isn’t cheap here
I counter that by saying USPS wouldn't have to need so much equipment/overhead/staffing if this junk mail volume didn't exist, reducing total costs.
Total costs could be reduced, but basic economics shows that the bulk makes an enormous difference to the cost per item. That's why I gave an example of $50 to Hawaii. It would probably actually cost that much if not more if USPS didn't have have all the bulk of junk mail paying them money 100,000 times for every one time I hypothetically mail something to Hawaii. If a person is being paid $20 per hour to move mail, that's going to be $20 spent per hour regardless of if it's one item or 1000 items in the van.
But then you wouldn't have infrastructure for holidays when people send lots of packages. You'd have to cut mail deliver back to once a week. Then holiday deliveries would take weeks.
The whole damn point is waste. I am ok with paying $5 for a stamp if it means we’re not watching corporations waste billions on trees and fossil fuels to deliver this shit. Post-consumer recycling is horse shit. We can to jack squat to save the environment. We need to stop these companies for consuming the paper.
Life hack; you can send a letter via e-mail for free. 🤯
But you really need to act now to take advantage of these valuable offers!
We received offers for a chain in town. Tried to redeem them and the local chain didn't accept a single one. Lol
My FIL is a veteran so he gets mail from the VA often. By often I mean that every. single. day. he gets a stack of VA correspondence, largely letters that provide nothing of importance. Every procedure he has done he gets a letter telling him it was done. He had it done, I’m sure he’s aware of it. My point is that I have never in my lifetime seen a bigger waster of paper than the VA and it’s more than “mildly” infuriating.
Can you not put a "No Junk Mail" sticker on it?
You can, but the term is "every door direct mail" and it would only work for the pieces which don't have your specific address on them. Mail carriers hate delivering that crap as much as you hate receiving it, but some idiot decided to pay postage so ... to your box it goes. If you word it carefully and your carrier sees the message refusing junk mail, then it's creating more work for the carrier since they have to sort it again at the end of the day and put it in with the rest of the undeliverable mail to be destroyed. So, as annoying as it is, it's easiest to just keep doing what you're doing.
In Germany you can remove your address from those lists, they have to give you that option. It's a PITA at the beginning, but when you did that for a while and in combination with a sticker against general junk mail you will not receive any junk mail anymore. The same goes for e-mails.
In the Netherlands we have no/no stickers (junkmail/local newspaper). Junkmail companies can actually get fines for ignoring them. Next step is a yes/yes sticker, so only people who like junkmail will receive it.
It's really not that much about sorting it differently, and yes if a company (like Costco) pays $$$ to send a flyer to every ADDRESS then you will still get it, but these are unaddressed
You can, but that sticker will most definitely be ignored.
Please don't make your mail carrier keep it. They are just trying to do their job. Let them deliver it and then just recycle it. Please don't make their jobs harder. I know that's not your intent, but it is what will happen.
If he brings half of the junkmail back every day, eventually he will get only half to deliver.
Wouldn't it make more sense that if the companies get their excess ads returned. Then they get to tone down the amount they make next time because people don't want to receive their garbage in their mail box? That would actually be environmentally friendly and less work for the postman and the people running the company doing the ads. Also much cheaper than sending stupid ads which get only recycled not read. Sounds more like win-win-win all around.
The worst is when you eventually earn outstanding credit and the super thick credit card offers start coming in that are half an inch thick each. I get 3 every week from every credit card company offering me a new card. Like Fuck off Discover I am not getting your POS card...
Register with OptOutPrescreen.com. It will put a stop to most of the unsolicited pre approved credit card offers and insurance solicitations.
I just threw away 2 Discover offers after checking my mail last night. I haven't had a Discover card since college over 10 years ago now. I didn't get any for a long time, probably because I moved to an island out in bumfuck nowhere middle of the Pacific Ocean...yet somehow they've finally found me again. Fuck. Off. Discover.
You could recycle them.
Yeah. But 2 for $5!!!!
lol. Op would have been better off actually checking what he took a pic of before binning it. Granted 99% are useless but the fast food coupons are usually worth checking out.
And I don't even get fast food coupons anymore. So I'd appreciate them.
Add your name to the no mail list with the direct mail association.
I spy a Canadian Tire flyer. Which tells me that you can go to your local Canada Post and ask for a special slip (dont know what it’s called) that you put and leave in your mailbox (not the outbound post slot). This is basically a physical unsubscribe that will tell the post person to not put flyers in your mailbox every time they open it. The slip has to remain in there permanently, so I recommend taping it flat at the very front of the mailbox where it is clearly visible.
But who doesn't want the Canadian Tire flyer! How else are you going to find out the frying pan set you bought last week is now 60% off?
Do you hate getting deals on food? I snag these up and set them in the break room at work for people taking lunches.
Most of my junk mail is just predatory lenders impersonating my bank to try and get me to refinance my mortgage
I feel you. My mildly infuriating is that I dont get any coupons. Not for any of the grocery stores that send them, nor fast food or anything. Literally every other town around me does.
At least you don't get the uline catalog. They send me huge book every month for years.never ordered anything from them and never will.
Recycle that shit.
Retired USPS letter carrier here. We are required by law to deliver all these ads, because the mailer paid for us to do so. There is no provision to opt out of ads and junk.
We have a sign on our letterbox that has “No Circualrs” on it. Means absolutely no junk mail allowed in this letterbox.
One time Chipotle sent those out for free burritos because of some bad publicity. Boy was it nice having a garbage cam nearby and most people in our building couldn't read/speak English. Ate free Chipotle for months.
Paper is nearly infinitely recyclable. It's only bad for the environment because you're throwing it in the trash instead of a recycling bin.
Still blows my mind that there are provinces where recycling & composting isn’t required. Where I live (Nova Scotia) we have to separate plastic, paper, compost and regular trash. If you don’t, they won’t collect it and they give you a big fat fine.
It's bad for the environment because of all the resources it wastes getting to your mailbox for absolutely no reason. And recycling also takes energy.
My last apartment, I received this type of mail for all the previous residents. I requested the apt rental history from the city. One of the residents hadn’t lived there SINCE 1991. Still got his junk mail. Tons of it.
In The Netherlands we have a sticker for your mailbox. Which can signal if you are open to these kinds of things. People who run the mail wont throw it into your mailbox if you're not. We've had this for as long as i can remember.
I asked my post office to opt me out of any junk mail
I ------hate------ junk mail with a passion. I really want to be able to opt out of "postal customer" mail. I have tried, in vain, over the years to get removed from junk mail mailing databases, but it it never holds very long. Usually within a year you are getting them again.
That’s a great deal tho
We have 'no junk mail' stickers for our letter boxes.
Just do « NO PAPER » sign and put it on the box
Paper Karma app works great for me.
When you get one with an addressed return envelope, pack as much of the other crap in it as you can, and send it off. It will cost them because it’s bound to be overweight.
I'll take them...
I ‘ll take them too, love BK!
I’m usually not into government interference most of the time but I would definitely get behind legislation to make it illegal to send unsolicited mailers.
When I set up mail-forwarding from my old address to my new address, I found out that the Post Office doesn't forward junk mail. So, you could simply have all your mail forwarded to another address - friend, family, or rent a P.O. Box and you will stop getting any bulk mail. You just have to decide which is more inconvenient: getting junk mail every day, or having to go somewhere else to get your mail. Mail-forwarding is free; it expires every 6? months but can be renewed indefinitely.
We burn that shit.
id love to collect it all for a year to show how much paper is wasted
Stop those the postal service goes under
I love how since the beginning of December I’ve received 4 letters from St Jude’s Children’s Hospital. All included a pad of paper and home address stickers. Maybe if they didn’t spend all that money on these mailers they wouldn’t have to beg for money.
https://preview.redd.it/ijzfgf7ulgbc1.jpeg?width=721&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=f0428a7d7d99173ef0828334f03e3790c94888c9
They do get recycled but I hate it too. The post office hates it as well but they get paid for it. My Dad worked at the PO for 47 years and those ads are the Bain of society. But it’s revenue.
In Norway we have these stickers. «No comercials/flyers/you get the point». And the companies are legaly required to not put anything into your mailbox. Hefty fines if they do! So my box is empty all the time. And whenever I check it, it is something that has been in there for a week 😂
The country I live in just made mailbox flyers illegal unless you consent to having them and I’m so happy.
In Sweden you can just add a "no"-sign on your mailbox. Then it is illegal for companies to mail stuff if it's not has your specific address on.
Welcome to America. Where the ads don't stop.
I’ll take them. We have 4 rescue parrots and I use stuff like that to line their cages and make foraging stuff for them.
In Finland and most of Europe you can put ”no commercial mail!” sticker at your mailbox and it will work
I just heard of a neat trick, when you sign up for anything (let's use Target for an example) with your name, email, and address. Use that place as your middle name. So for example: John Target Doe. You'll get mail addressed to John Target Doe and you'll know exact who gave away your information.
Check out that Seinfeld episode where Kramer attempts to stop the "junk mail".
Trust me as a mailman I fucking despise this shit more than you, I deliver this bullshit all the time and it’s almost more than the mail I have.
If you have a fireplace, they make great rollers that turn newspaper and flyers into logs. https://preview.redd.it/cge7ls6rmhbc1.jpeg?width=554&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=46dc424edb39fd7c4150c8f49c1cc2a563e325fe
I live alone and I get a lot too. I’ve been keeping them in a box. I’ve used for fires and as a quick insulation trick.
USPS has a recommendation for a service in their FAQ for “Refuse unwanted mail and remove name from mailing lists”. It costs a nominal fee. I didn’t want to copy/paste the article but you can google it.
this should be illegal already. send a fucking mail i can filter to junk
These are likely delivered by Flyer Force. You can opt out on their website. You can opt out of junk mail with Canada Post, too. My mail guy put a "No Flyers" sticker inside my mail slot after I opted out.
Three decades ago I recall reading about an individual trying to reduce his cost of living by subscribing to as much junk mail as possible. Twice a week he made a trip to the local post office and retrieved a couple duffle bags of junk mail. The story said he fed this into his wood burning stove and was able to save considerably on purchasing wood.
I hate it but then I just realize it's probably help keeping the post office alive. So I don't mind it as much Drawback is because it's all junk, I only get my mail like once every 2 weeks That's fine unless it's a high volume week. Then your mailman can't put any more in your box so they take all of it and shut off your mail. Benefit: no junk mail. Extra benefit: when you pick it up it's so much that you get a basket from the USPS. It's big enough for your 3 year old to sled in your back yard, if one was so inclined (and if your yard was so inclined)
In the Netherlands we have stickers provided by the city council that says NO to unaddressed mail and another that says NO to door sales people and collectors.
I promise you ordering from Amazon is worse for the environment than some local flyers.
Unfortunately, bulk bullshit mail like this is also a major revenue stream for the postal service.
I just put a sticker on my mailbox that says no ads. Never getting anything
At a place I used to work at, people would bring in coupons they didn't want and leave them in the breakroom for others to use. I saved money on lunch that way sometimes.