Too much junk mail

Posted by Aaron Bloxsome on 13 January 2010

Tags: advertising, junk mail, waste of paper

I don't know if I'm alone in noticing this, but the amount of junk mail being posted in our letter boxes appears to have increased dramatically over the past few months. More junk is arriving nearly every day.

In one week, I usually get at least 30 pieces of junk mail (sometimes more), mainly from the same advertisers, particularly large corporations. I normally don't mind receiving advertising in the post and this hasn't been a problem before, but now it's getting beyond a joke.

Do these advertisers think about what this is doing to the environment? I'm continually filling my recycle bin with more and more of this stuff. Some may say that the hurdle of marketing in a tough economy justifies this sort of wastage, I don't think it does.

I'm really not against the principle of mail advertising, but this overindulgence being practiced by the corpulent, self-serving few seems to be ruining the potential of this marketing method for normal, less intense advertisers. By overdoing it, most people sooner or later are simply going to shut off (or request to have no further junk mail), a great marketing avenue flogged and exhausted.

To me, there seems to be a distinct lack of moderation amongst a handful of larger (and exponentially more frequent) advertisers, which I'm beginning to find very intrusive. Maybe it's time to put a 'no junk mail' sticker on my mail box.