No Junk Mail (Thank you)
Credit: Graham Chaffer/Cartoonstock
Today's blog post is about a subject matter that irks both environmentalists and non-environmentalists equally: unsolicited advertising material.
Whether you are the most ardent climate denialist or a long-suffering quiet environmentalist, the sight of junk mail will always evoke the same string of emotions: disappointment followed by mild aggravation and then the subtle, depressing awareness that life is just a never-ending cycle of half price offers on stuff you already own and paid full price for.
If the only thing you are likely to find in your letterbox is a damp pile of supermarket specials being slowly consumed by a regiment of anti-capitalist garden snails, the most sensible thing to do is not open it. (Especially around Christmas and birthdays, for there is nothing more dispiriting than unlocking that hatch hoping to see your name, handwritten in sweeping cursive, on the front of a lovely book-shaped package, and finding a stack of uninspiring sales brochures instead.)
The handwritten letters, party invitations and [opportunities to boast about ones children disguised as] Christmas cards have long since been replaced by takeaway menus, charity bags and [opportunities for local politicians to boast about themselves disguised as] fridge calendars, yet the sight of junk mail in the letterbox still leads to a profound sense of disappointment. Of course, a letterbox full of junk mail is not as disappointing as one that contains a suspiciously indistinguishable envelope with an unexpected traffic infringement in it, but a pile of unsolicited advertising material runs a close second.
The obvious solution to all of these heinous arrivals would be to rid ourselves of the letterbox completely but, as that would make things difficult for local postal workers and a catastrophic nightmare for the Federal Department of Incognito Traffic Fines, it is best that we leave the letterboxes intact and just focus on ridding them of junk mail instead.
Now, I know what you are thinking. Get a sticker.
And to that I respond, I already have one.
The sticker appears boldly across the entire letterbox with a clear and no-nonsense directive: NO JUNK MAIL. I'm not normally this assertive and public about my low-waste lifestyle, but it was already on the letterbox when I moved in and a good portion of Australians have the same sticker, so I felt it unlikely to offend any hard-working (if ethically compromised) marketing distributors.
Admittedly, my concern about offending them has now almost entirely disappeared.
When I moved in, I felt the No Junk Mail sign would be more than sufficient. I was obviously misguided but, in my mind, having that sticker meant that I would avoid any materials that were not specifically addressed to me and were being generally distributed for the sole purpose of getting people to purchase something. That seemed quite a rational interpretation of a No Junk Mail sign but, having lived in this unit for several years now, I have come to the realisation that my interpretation is grossly inaccurate.
Actually, to be perfectly honest, I still think my interpretation is the correct one. It's just not the same interpretation as those that distribute said leaflets and their interpretation is really the only one that matters here.
According to my local army of junk mail dispersers, a No Junk Mail sign refers only to sales brochures that are obviously sales brochures. For example, I am never alerted to the bi-weekly NEVER TO BE REPEATED SALE! flyers for all the products I wouldn't know I needed unless I discovered they were half price. I appreciate not receiving this information. Some people may worry they are missing out when they don't know what's on sale at their local supermarket, but all of those people will be much better off if they never find out that Ben 'n Jerry's is half price, microwave pepperoni pizza is on special, and there's a two-for-one deal on slabs of Coke.
What letterbox distributors fail to identify as junk mail are all of the items that don't have a big ONLY WHILE STOCKS LAST stamp on the front. These not-on-sale-but-very-much-advertising materials fall into a couple of categories.
The first is the 'my brochure doesn't count as you definitely want this' category with the prime offenders being takeaway establishments and tradespeople. They might be small, local, and independent, but that doesn't mean their advertising leaflets can be reclassified as community service announcements. They may think they belong in the same category as a reminder from your local health provider about your annual skin cancer screening, but they do not.*
The second category of No-Junk-Mail-sticker-ignorers is the 'my brochure doesn't count as it is a personal message from me to you'. This category is specific to politicians and real estate agents who both seem to think that if they stick a photo of themselves on the front of their ad, it exempts them. Well, it does not. I appreciate they have paid a lot of money for their digitally enhanced half-body portrait, but it belongs on their Instagram profile, the 'about me' section of their website, and on personalised Christmas cards to their mothers. It does not belong in my letterbox.**
Despite my sticker, ninety percent of what I was receiving was duplicitous junk mail, therefore I decided I needed to take more serious action. I was already on the Do Not Mail | ADMA list and there was no chance I was going to do anything so confrontation as call the companies that had letterboxed me and politely recommend they retrain their direct marketing division. No. I did the only thing a quiet environmentalist can possibly do when they realise that the most sensible approach requires making phone calls.
I went online and ordered another sticker.
For a brief moment I did consider the most direct of all stickers: AUSTRALIA POST ONLY. But I was also aware that two overly assertive stickers on the one letterbox might be perceived as an aggressive attack on marketing distributors. As this could result in a passive aggressive counterattack involving whitegoods brochures being shoved en masse into the letterbox, I opted for this silver plaque instead:
No Junk Mail
I ♥ Planet Earth.
Surprisingly, this seems to have done the trick. I've had it on my letterbox for seven months now and haven't received a single piece of junk mail. Not even from the local religious community. I assume they saw my eco-sticker and realised that saving my soul would result in having to provide vegan options at the Sunday Service morning tea, so decided it wasn't worth the trouble.
I appreciate this won't solve the issue for everyone. There will always be marketing distributors out there so passionate about their local real estate agency or pizza shop that they'd ensure you got a leaflet even if you upgraded the letterbox to a Venus flytrap. Most marketing distributors, fortunately, are fairly reasonable. If your withered 'No Junk Mail' sign now reads 'N unk Ail', they might be forgiven for slipping you the last supermarket specials brochure so they can knock off for the day. At the very least you should upgrade that sticker. And getting a second one and sticking it right in the centre of the box instead of politely across the top, means you really mean business.
A sticker that also references one's love for planet Earth has the added benefit of passive aggressively pointing out one’s own moral superiority while subtly suggesting that this could be the home of an extreme environmentalist who will wage a drawn-out social media war against any company that has the audacity to leave junk mail in their letterbox. I am obviously not going to do that, but if my friendly little eco-sticker happens to strike fear in the hearts of the junk mail distribution army, I certainly won't remove it.
The Quiet Environmentalist FURTHER READING
The Environmental Repercussions of Junk Mail - The Good Men Project
How to avoid junk mail | Sustainability Victoria
How to Opt Out of Junk Mail (and Why You Should) (treehugger.com)
Let’s Ban Junk Mail Already | Sierra Club
*I am aware that I will likely need the services of a tradesperson in the future (hopefully just for a blocked sink and not a climate change-induced catastrophic flood), but when that happens, I will not be selecting the companies that rudely ignored my anti-advertising letterbox sign. I also won't be ordering from any of the local pizza shops that ignore commonly agreed upon letterbox conventions when distributing their menus around the neighbourhood. The most recent offender not only ignored my No Junk Mail sign, but they also had the audacity to deliver a four-page menu containing not a single climate-friendly vegan option. After carefully reviewing their entire brochure, the only moderately environmental option I could come up with was to chop the menu up and add it to my compost, which I immediately did.
**If I'm perfectly honest, I would have quite liked to see the realtors face when I recently flipped over one of their cards. What greeted me instead was a giant huntsman. Greet is probably not the right word. Neither of us were delighted to see each other when we did. Unfortunately, this spider was so enamoured with its piece of junk mail that it opted to stay quietly attached to the back of it until I had walked all the way into the house. Therefore, instead of a flutter of nerves near the letterbox before we both went on our way, what ensued was a terrifying game of hide-and-seek around my kitchen. So, while I appreciate that its loyalty to the real estate flyer stopped it from crawling up my arm, I think we could both agree that it would have been better for everyone had there not been a realtor’s face in my letterbox for the spider to take a liking to. On the plus side, I now have a perfectly legitimate excuse to pummel the headshots of all real estate agents with the back of a broom before retrieving them from my letterbox. (A meditative practice I can recommend to everyone.)
Published 07 July 2024
