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.
1 - How does Junk Buster work?
Junk Buster sends automatically generated e-mails to opt-out schemes you select. The e-mails contain a standard opt-out request and your name and address details, but not your e-mail address.
In fact, you don't even need an e-mail address to use Junk Buster. Only if you want to receive a confirmation e-mail and/or choose to take part in our follow-up survey will you be asked to give us an e-mail address.
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2 - Can I not just contact the opt-out schemes myself?
You certainly can. Here is what you need to do for each scheme:
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3 - Can I use Junk Buster to opt in again after I've opted out?
No, you can't. However, should you for whatever reason get a craving for junk mail and/or directories, you can contact the opt-out schemes yourself and ask them to start sending you junk mail again at any time (see FAQ 2 for the contact details).
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4 - How long will it take before I stop receiving junk mail?
Royal Mail promises to stop delivering door-to-door items within six weeks time. The Mailing Preference Service and Your Choice both need three months before the opt-out becomes fully effective. However, you should see a reduction in the amount of junk mail you receive during this period.
It is important to note that Royal Mail and Your Choice will not automatically accept your request. To make things unnecessarily complicated, they will send you an opt-out form via the post. They do this so they can verify that you have asked to be opted out indeed and, sadly, to try to change your mind about opting-out (see FAQ 5).
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5 - I've received a letter from Royal Mail / Your Choice warning me that I may miss important information if I opt-out. Should I be worried?
After you have asked Royal Mail and/or Your Choice to stop delivering unaddressed mail, they will send you a letter full of warnings about the consequences of opting-out. The main warning is that you may miss important information from local and/or national government if you decide to opt-out.
Our advice is not to be put off by these scare tactics. Local and national government never use Royal Mail's door-to-door scheme and/or Your Choice to send important information. There are other schemes they can use should they really need to contact each household. The warning mainly applies to free magazines distributed door-to-door by most local councils.
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6 - What is the follow-up survey about?
At Stop Junk Mail, we get a great number of complaints about Royal Mail's Door-to-Door Opt-Out. In order for us to investigate this properly, we would like to know whether or not the opt-out has been useful for people who have used Junk Buster to register with it. For this purpose, we have designed a follow-up survey.
If you tick the Door-to-Door Opt-Out box, Junk Buster will ask you if you're happy to take part in the survey. If you agree to take part, we will send you an e-mail in about four months time asking you to complete a mini-survey about how effective the opt-out has been for you.
The survey does not ask you for any personal or irrelevant information and is always completed anonymously. We're not interested in whether or not you're married and how much you earn; we just want to find out if the opt-out has helped reducing junk mail.
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7 - How do you make money?
The Junk Buster is funded by Stop Junk Mail, a not-for-profit campaign group believing that stopping junk mail should be free.
Stop Junk Mail is funded by the sale of 'no junk mail' signs and other useful products. If you feel we've done a great job helping you get rid of junk mail, please do consider buying something from our shop. Or, why not make a small donation to keep us going?
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8 - What if my opt-out request is ignored?
Unfortunately, this does sometimes happen. The feedback we have had so far suggests that in particular Royal Mail and Thomson Local ignore many of the opt-out requests they receive.
Should your request be ignored, our advice is to contact the opt-out scheme directly (for contact details, see FAQ 2). We do not act as an intermediary and will not contact opt-out schemes on your behalf. That said, you can always contact us if you need more information.
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9 - How have you calculated how much unsolicited mail Junk Buster will stop?
There is no independent data about junk mail volumes available, but using reasonably reliable statistics from Defra and some common sense we have been able to estimate that Junk Buster can stop 246 pieces, or 6.7 kilos, of junk mail per year. The calculation has been made as follows:
Savings in numbers
TYPE |
TOT |
P/HH |
D2D |
YC |
MPS |
SAV |
Addressed |
4.5bn |
167 |
N/A |
N/A |
84[2] |
84 |
Unaddressed |
6.5bn[1] |
241 |
150[3] |
12[4] |
N/A |
162 |
Total |
12.0bn |
408 |
150 |
12 |
84 |
246 |
Savings in kilos
TYPE |
TOT |
P/HH |
D2D |
YC |
MPS |
SAV |
Addressed |
181t |
6.7 |
N/A |
N/A |
3.4 |
3.4 |
Unaddressed |
184t |
6.8 |
4.3 |
0.3 |
N/A |
4.6 |
Total |
365t |
13.5 |
4.3 |
0.3 |
3.4 |
8.0 |
|
TOT
P/HH
D2D
YC
MPS
SAV
|
Total volume of junk mail in the UK (excluding inserts).
Amount of junk mail the average households receives per year.
Royal Mail's Door-to-Door Opt-Out.
Your Choice Preference Scheme for Unaddressed Mail.
Mailing Preference Service.
Total amount of junk mail that can be stopped using Junk Buster.
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[1] The total volume of unaddressed junk mail is 13 billion / 368,5 tonnes per year. Inserts in newspapers and magazines account for about half this figure and have been left out of the calculation.
[2] The Mailing Preference Service claims to stop 'up to 95 per cent' of direct mail (what we prefer to simply call addressed junk mail). Unfortunately, the 'up to' bit is highly misleading and ignores the fact that most addressed junk mail is the result people failing to tick opt-out boxes when they buy something or donate money to a charity. Not ticking an opt-out box is the same as explicitly asking an organisation to send you heaps of junk mail. The MPS does not stop these mailings - a request to receive junk mail overrules a registration with the MPS. We therefore estimate that the MPS will on average only stop half of all addressed junk mail.
[3] Royal Mail is currently allowed to deliver three items of unaddressed mail per household per week, or up to 156 pieces of junk mail per year. We reckon Royal Mail manages to deliver three pieces of junk mail a week to almost every household in the UK and that the figure of 150 pieces of junk mail per year is a realistic figure.
[4] Your Choice only covers unaddressed junk mail delivered by members of the Direct Marketing Association - excluding Royal Mail and local newspapers. Because local distribution companies and small local businesses are usually not members of the DMA, Your Choice will do very little to reduce junk mail. One leaflet a month is an optimistic estimate.
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© 2009 by Stop Junk Mail, 2 Mill Hill Road, Norwich, NR2 3DP
