Junk Buster

Stop your junk mail! Why? Because in the UK alone, 550,000 tonnes of paper is wasted on unsolicited mail every year. Unimaginable quantities of trees, water and energy are used to bombard householders with advertisements they have never asked for. It's madness.

Junk mail is by far the most polluting form of advertising. Bulk mailers can write as many reports about how 'environmentally responsible' the junk mail industry is, the fact remains that they are plundering natural resources and that they will continue to do so as long as there are trees left. Why else does Royal Mail not advertise to its customers that they can stop up to 156 pieces of unaddressed mail per year by registering with its 'Door-to-Door Opt-Out'? Why else is it not possible to register with the 'Your Choice' scheme online? Why else would the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) refuse to promote the Mailing Preference Service (MPS) on addressed junk mail?

The main junk mail opt-out schemes in the UK are all run by the same people who produce junk mail. They don't want you to opt-out and they will do nothing to make stopping unwanted mail easy and effective. Junk Buster is here to change this. While bulk mailers indulge in greenwash, we tell you what you can actually do to stop your junk mail. And while bulk mailers refuse to advertise the existence of opt-out schemes, we make it easier for you to contact these schemes. We do what bulk mailers should be doing; that is, providing a decent service for all those people who simply have had enough junk mail.

It's ridiculous to say that you care about the environment and respect people's choices on the one hand, and to try to prevent people use opt-out schemes on the other. Yet, this is exactly what the DMA – the representative of bulk mailers in the UK and the organisation behind the MPS and Your Choice – is doing. The Your Choice scheme, for instance, has purely been set up to prevent the introduction of a central junk mail opt-in scheme by the Government. Your Choice has not been designed to actually stop junk mail. The DMA has never organised a marketing campaign to promote the scheme and registering is as customer unfriendly as it could possibly be. To opt out you have to read through four pages of junk mail propaganda and warnings about the consequences of opting out before filling out and returning the actual opt-out form. A return envelope, something which junk mailers never fail to provide when they want a response, is somehow not provided.

To add insult to injury, the lengthy 'Your Choice Opt-Out Pack' does not mention that registering with the scheme is unlikely to stop even a single piece of junk mail. Your Choice is supposed to stop unaddressed junk mail delivered by members of the DMA. That might sound promising, but it's not. The bulk of unaddressed junk mail is delivered by local businesses and local junk mail distribution companies, both of which are hardly ever members of the DMA. The rest of unaddressed junk mail is delivered by Royal Mail, but they already have there own opt-out. As you may have guessed, the two opt-out schemes do not work together, even though Royal Mail is in fact a member of the DMA. Just to discourage you from opting out you have to contact both schemes separately.

We could give many more examples of how bulk mailers refuse to give people an easy way of opting out of unsolicited mail. Did you know, for example, that your registration with Royal Mail's Door-to-Door Opt-Out automatically expires after just two years time and that they will opt you in again without asking? Did you know that bulk mailers can ignore your registration with the MPS by simply sending you junk mail with a generic address (that is, those annoying 'To the Occupier' mailings). We could go on and on and on. But we've said enough about junk mail…

Directories still do need a mention though. Via Junk Buster you can also contact the three main paper directories delivered door-to-door in the UK: the Yellow Pages, Thomson Local and BT Telephone Directory. Although, strictly speaking, junk mail and directories are quite different pieces of waste, they do have a lot in common. In particular, the fact that the companies who produce directories don't advise householders that they can opt out. If they don't, we will.

Most British households nowadays have the internet to find just about any information they need. Yell, Thomson Local and BT seem to be completely oblivious of this by insisting on delivering their books door-to-door throughout the UK. Don't they care that they produce piles of unwanted and unused paper? Is this a rhetorical question?

Another thing the producers of directories have in common with junk mailers is that they are good at setting up green 'talk shops' and writing extensive reports about how 'future-proof' their environmental policies are. What else can this be than greenwash if the same companies don't inform consumers that they don't have to receive directories?

So… it's over you to you now. Via Junk Buster you can contact up to six opt-out schemes in one go and stop up to 249 pieces / 11.3 kilos of junk mail. We've worked hard to create this free and friendly service. Now it's up to you to make a difference.