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Showing Original Post only (View all)Junk mail is environmentally destructive, pollutes, uses energy, & we can't even stop it from coming [View all]
I have added myself to lists to stop junk mail, countless times over the years.
I have removed myself from other lists designed to get me sent things.
I don't sign up for deals and whatnot, to keep my address of yet more lists.
I've moved almost all charitable giving to anonymous in order to stay off those lists.
I've attempted to stop the half dozen phone books that come to my address each year, without success.
I've tried to stop the local, free newspaper from being left in my driveway multiple times per week.
I don't want any of this stuff. While I've been able to stop a fair amount of it, there is an amazing amount of crap that still comes through. Even friends who check mail while I'm gone comment that I receive less junk mail than they do. In other words, most people receive a lot of wasteful crap in the form of junk mail that they don't want and that they throw away.
This is environmentally destructive. The waterways in my area are polluted by trash. The waterways in many areas are likewise. Moving unwanted paper around, roundtrip, through mail delivery, and back via trash or recycling and associated hauling, uses resources, uses money, etc. etc.
And it's for stuff most people DON'T WANT...worse for stuff most people CANNOT STOP.
I think our mail carriers are good people for the most part. I want them to have jobs, to have pensions, to deliver mail on Saturdays or have something else to do by their employer that makes them a living.
But I don't think it's necessary to have a good mail system while inundating people with a ton, tons of tons, of unwanted junk mail deliveries that are destructive to local creeks, fill local landfills, and even when recycled, require a great deal of fossil fuels to recycle (not just the hauling, but the resources to recycle it into something, like, oh, maybe more junk mail!).
It's enough. There's got to be a better way.