Sustainability Waste of paper though commercials in your post box

Today I received two copies of the phone directory (yellow and white pages) in my post box (well next to it as it didn't fit). It's the same every year. They go immediately to my recyclable paper bin. I told the publisher that I wasn't interested because I only check their Internet version, but they keep sending them to me every year.

Imagine that millions of people in my situation that don't give a damn about a cumbersome paper version of the phone directory. That's a pure waste of paper, fuel (for the deliveries) and money.

I don't understand how this kind of nonsense is still happening in our increasingly environmentally conscious society.

I once ordered clothes from a website of a mail order company. In the following months they send me all sort of junk mail (promotional ads, but also big catalogues). I emailed them threatening never to order anything again from them if they kept sending me all this unsolicited mail. I explained that I had ordered from the Internet in the first place to avoid having a paper copy of their catalogue as I was environment conscious. The message got through and they stopped at once. But this isn't always the case.

I also received a "national survey" of the post office, a 10-page A4 format questionnaire for people who don't care about their privacy and have too much time to kill. I threw it away immediately too, as it wasn't compulsory. But they send me a "reminder" (specifying that it still wasn't obligatory), which I ignored all the same, then a second reminder, that also landed in the bin before opening the envelope. Oddly enough there was no way to submit the survey through the Internet, and no specified contact number or email where I could have asked told them to stop wasting their time and mine.

The worst waste of paper in the last few months was the election campaign. I got enough pamphlets from all parties in my post box to fill a whole rubbish bag. Some candidates send their leaflets twice. Sometime the delivery guy just dropped 3 or 4 identical leaflets in my post box, to get rid of his pack more quickly I suppose.

I wonder what is the point of wasting so much time and money with all these political pamphlets and posters in the street. There is absolutely no way that seeing the candidates' face and self-introduction is going to convince me to vote them. Actually, the only thing they achieve is annoying me. My natural reaction is therefore to make sure that I don't vote for any of the people who contributed to the world deforestation to satisfy their pride, and annoyed a whole country's population.

I have always voted for the same party since I was 18, and it's not a piece of paper that will change my convictions. But at least the campaigns tell me who I shouldn't vote for within the party of my choice. Ironically the green party isn't more eco-friendly than the others in this regard.

With the part about junk mail, I agree with you, we put a sticker to notify them we don't want junk mail, but they put them in our mailbox anyway!
:36::50:

However, with the white or yellow pages in paper format, today we had to find a phone number quickly and "The white pages" was quicker than switching on the laptop!

So when there are other options it is always good.

I do like the brands I am loyal to sending me advertisement on paper because then I didn't need to print out the coupons online, it is already ready and I just put them in my purse ready to be used!.:grin:

I forgot to say that I also have a "no junk mail" sticker on my postbox. It doesn't not seem to have any effect.

oh,no........

It aggravates me to no end but it is a real problem in most developed countries. Every evening after I get home from work I seperate out "good mail" from "junk mail." Normally the good mail stack is tiny, one or two items that have any real value for me. The junk mail stack is normally 5 or 6 items consisting of catalogs from places that I have ordered from online, credit card applications from those same businesses.
Every week I recieve at least 5 different credit card applications with my name and address on the forms. Along with the applications are blank checks, to be used with the card that I am already "automatically approved for." Before I can recycle any of this crap, I have to carry it upstairs to my office and run it through a paper shredder.
I have requested from each of these companies to not send my any more mailings and they keep coming. Every month it is the same mailings from the same companies. Unfortunately here in the US we don't have anything like a no junk mail sticker for a mail boxes. Although it doesn't seem to be doing you in Europe any real benefit.
Another thing that absolutely infuriates me are unsolicited telephone calls. I have my home phone number on 2 different "Do Not Call Lists" a state based list and a national list. However the calls keep coming. I just look at the caller ID and if I don't recognize the number I don't answer.
Occassionally I will get a call from a business that I do business with, bank, power, telephone or credit card company. I will answer these calls and nealy 100% of the time they are spam, wanting me to open a new account or offering a new service for a fee. I tell them that I am on a do not call list and they say back to me,"But you are our customer, so we can call you anytime." So I tell them if you want to keep me as a customer don't call me back or I will stop using your business.
This seldom works and I have kept my promise and stopped using their services, although it is a real pain in the a$$ to change banks.
One time I got a call from a cable TV and broadband internet provider. They kept trying to get me to buy other services from them. After 30 or more calls from them in 2 weeks that I did not answer, I finally answered the phone and told them if they called one more time I would cancel my service with them.
A few days later I got a call from the local manager of the company, he understood that I wanted to cancel my service from them. I told him, "yes now that you have called me I am going to cancel, I told your telephone spammer if I got one more call from you I would cancel, and now you have done it."
He started offering me all sort of incentives to stay with their service and told him to bit my fat white posterior and hung up."
I called up another provider and in 24 hours I was switched to their service. Since that time I have stopped getting calls from the original provider but they are bombarding me with junk mail and offers begging me to return to their service. They normally send along a postage paid envelope with their junk, so I remove my name, address and any other information that would indicate who the mail was sent to and put it in the envelope. Then I mail it back to them.
I have started doing that with every mail spammer that sends me unwanted mail. I hope that if everybody did that they would start losing so much money on postage that they will stop sending it. Unfortunately I can't do this with catalogs and folded brochures, so sometimes I mail those back to whoever is handy and has sent me an appropriately sized envelope. :innocent: