Mail Box Full Of Crap

[waldedw]

Sakes alive enough already, Canada post must make millions of $$ per year delivering all the crap that ends up in my mail box, again today I had 17 pieces of mail in the box 15 of which were junk advertising mail and flyers.

Only 2 were actually addressed to me with my name and address, 1 of those was a promotional pamphlet from Telus and the other one was from the Canadian Wildlife Federation of course asking for a donation of $50, $65 or $75 and sending me another 50 return address mail stickers for envelopes, I have enough of those to last me 200 years, who the heck mails letters anymore ????

It's bloody unreal, we are being bombarded by advertising crap every which way we turn, the Internet, the TV and our mailboxes.

OK that's my little rant for a Monday morning, I think I'll go have a nice bowl of my homemade turkey soup for lunch before my blood pressure get's to high, y'all have a good day eh.

[Hawkeye]

I recall being in a post office in a small town. Another person opened their box, pulled out the contents and purposefully let the flyers and advertisements drop to the floor.......there are slobs everywhere, I suppose.........

[bat119]

The Lloyd paper is the worst 20 flyers that go straight into the blue bag 6 pages of week old news, it's free so you can't cancel it no matter how hard you try.

[tbiddy]

We are taking care of the mother in laws place in Lloydminster after she passed away. The local newspaper/flyers shows up Thursday. If we don’t get the mail at least every two weeks they can’t close the mailbox it is so stuffed with flyers, the weekly paper, junk mail and maybe one piece of mail. Very frustrating.

[Howard Hutchinson]

I believe there is a way to ask that canada post not have these delivered to your box. We did this many years ago and we get very few now. Some slip through yet there are way less.

Enjoy the soup friend.

[wildwoods]

Easy solution: I throw a taped sign in my box saying "no junk mail". My mail carriers NEVER put flyers in my mailbox as a result.
Hope this helps

[Mavrick]

Tape a note just inside your box saying, NO AD MAIL, they will stop putting it in there. Worked for us anyway.

[Mavrick]

Originally Posted by wildwoods

Easy solution: I throw a taped sign in my box saying "no junk mail". My mail carriers NEVER put flyers in my mailbox as a result.
Hope this helps

Ok your first, ^^^ do that.

[MountainTi]

Call or stop by and tell the post office no flyers/junk mail. Takes less time than starting a thread on here
Did that 10 years ago and haven't had any since

[Pathfinder76]

Originally Posted by MountainTi

Call or stop by and tell the post office no flyers/junk mail. Takes less time than starting a thread on here
Did that 10 years ago and haven't had any since

I did the exact same thing years ago. They put a sticker on the box and not a single piece of junk mail since.

[JohninAB]

Originally Posted by chuck

I did the exact same thing years ago. They put a sticker on the box and not a single piece of junk mail since.

X2

[crazyperch]

Like others, i just put a note in the box saying "addressed mail only"
i havent had any junk since

[huntinstuff]

I have a firepit....

[thumper]

I've often considered putting every piece of unsolicited mail in a big box, for a full 12 months - just to see how much paper is actually wasted.

All that waste, all those trees, all the energy to make, print, distribute, collect & recycle.

And we're banning plastic straws .....

[Outbound]

I grabbed the wife's label maker and made one that says "Addressed Mail Only Please". Haven't had a junk flyer since then. I'll sometimes go a couple weeks without a single letter in my mailbox. It's really nice.

[elkhunter11]

Originally Posted by huntinstuff

I have a firepit....

I have a woodstove, I welcome the cheap non glossy junkmail.

[tri777]

Junk mail is good to me, good for starting fire in fireplace.

Edit ^^ Yes, I despise the glossy crap flyers too!

[SamSteele]

I used to stuff junk mail into the postage paid envelopes that would come with some junk mail and mail it back to them. I eventually figured out that I could stop it with a red sticker inside my mail box. No more issue.

SS

[TheFall]

Originally Posted by thumper

I've often considered putting every piece of unsolicited mail in a big box, for a full 12 months - just to see how much paper is actually wasted.

All that waste, all those trees, all the energy to make, print, distribute, collect & recycle.

And we're banning plastic straws .....

This is my take on it as well. Our federal government is pushing for everyone to be more environmentally conscious/responsible, even taxing us to try and curb usage. Then they allow Canada post to fill our mailboxes with plastic, paper, cardboard and ink, which either ends up in the recycling center, landfill, or (for the majority of us here) burned. Heck the other day I got an entire book from the Jehovah witnesses.

For a crown corporation to continue to do this is very hypocritical. We live in a digital day and age where most of these flyers or advertisements for big business are already supplied to us online if we want them. Local small business for the most part is already finding ways to adapt and not reply on flyer advertising.

Canada post, a crown corporation is allowing a cycle of environmental damage.

Last I checked paper pulping was pretty bad for the environment and quite energy intensive, not to mention cutting down trees (in the 90s, cutting down trees were the equivalent of plastic today). Even if we give them benefit of the doubt that they are using recycled paper and plastic, you still have all the energy used to create the raw product, create the junk mail and transport the junk mail multiple times before the end target

The energy it takes to transport the junk mail is wasted, we still need to take into account that the Canada post employee needs to deliver important mail but anyone that has hauled product knows that weight effects fuel efficiency and since I see most of the mail delivery people delivering in mid sized SUV's I am going to go with they would burn much less fuel not driving an SUV worth of junk paper around.

Once that flyer is transferred to the end target, a few things happen, after, the majority of the time, barely being looked at:
1) it is burned, releasing contaminants into the atmosphere, ink and plastic coating being the major concerns. Yes it is a small amount but we are playing the governments game back at them.
2) It goes in the garbage, taking up unnecessary space and weight, that is then trucked to a landfill and processed resulting in a waste of diesel, electricity and man power. Not to mention most people pay for that service, if I am paying for it I would rather not waste space on something I did not request in the first place.
3) It goes in the recycling bin, where again it takes up unnecessary space, is trucked to a facility and then sorted out to be processed, and then processed. Ironically I would wager that this is more energy intensive and man power intensive than the landfill and therefor worse for the environment than just throwing it in the garbage or burning it. It is not good for the environment to recycle something that was never necessary to be created in the first place. This is also a paid for service that individuals pay through service fees, and the town or municipality needs to pay to take care of.

Just something to think about. The government is using money to fund a viscous cycle of climate impact through unnecessary energy usage, all so that (mostly) major corporations/chains/ext. can advertise to us, and then provide us fliers beside their advertisements to tell us what "Woke" thing they are doing or funding in regards to the environment or social ideal/equality they are implementing.

Thanks to those that suggested putting a "No unaddressed mail" note in the mailbox, this is not something my young self thought you could do and I will be doing that tomorrow. The town provides me a newspaper each week to my door (can not opt out of this one unfortunately... the kid keeps throwing it on my step) for starting fires, no need to get junk in the mail as well.

[Grizzly Adams1]

Originally Posted by huntinstuff

I have a firepit....

If you say no junk mail, you won't be getting those interesting free farm papers either. It all burns well.

Grizz

[Okotok]

Can you still buy those old hand crank machines for making fireplace "logs" out of old papers? Ha!

[Ebrand]

BUT......

We got new mailboxes that will supposedly keep the meth heads out......

Had to put in a new sticker. No big deal, worked like a charm.

NOW I get a pile of unsolicited ad mail delivered to my front door (because I don't have a mailbox there) every week.

How do I find out who is doing this aside from grabbing the delivery guy ?

[Redfrog]

How do all you complainers like your postal rates?

Someone hires and pays the post office to deliver that "junk mail", same as your letter to mom that you pay for. Remove that revenue stream and what happens to postal rates?

Do you get ads for stuff you don't want in magazines etc that you pay for and pay to have delivered? Do you lose a lot of sleep over these?

Complain when you get to be my age and you've put up with the junk mail for 70 years. And BTW those are not real sea horses advertised for a $1.

[thumper]

Originally Posted by Redfrog

How do all you complainers like your postal rates?

Someone hires and pays the post office to deliver that "junk mail", same as your letter to mom that you pay for. Remove that revenue stream and what happens to postal rates?

There's no way that advertisers are paying the same postage rate as a letter I'm sending to Mom ! I've always been curious about how much (or little) businesses pay for each advertising piece, compared to what I pay to mail a letter.

And we've been told, that Canada Post can not honour stickers or notes asking to not deliver junk mail - in our mailbox. They've signed contracts with advertisers to deliver one piece to every household in specific postal code(s), and are oblidged to honour that contract.

[Ebrand]

Originally Posted by thumper

There's no way that advertisers are paying the same postage rate as a letter I'm sending to Mom ! I've always been curious about how much (or little) businesses pay for each advertising piece, compared to what I pay to mail a letter.

And we've been told, that Canada Post can not honour stickers or notes asking to not deliver junk mail - in our mailbox. They've signed contracts with advertisers to deliver one piece to every household in specific postal code(s), and are oblidged to honour that contract.

Or delivery guy is respectful of my “No Flyers Please” note. If that changes I will put all that crap into the inbox.

[sewerrat]

Here in Red Deer the flyers come with a useless news paper on Thursday. The used to just throw the papers on my front deck and then the wind would take off with it or the rain would soak it. I called them up and canceled, so now I don't get no more flyers, just once in a while I get booze and Canadian tire flyers through the post office which I don't mind.

I have the Rebee and the Flipp app and all the flyers show up on it. works great.

[58thecat]

Real so,pls solution to a first world problem just ask them to not put any non addressed mail etc in your box.

We went through this and problem solved while picking up a parcel....just asked.

[Larry.S]

If it weren’t for the flyers and junk I’d get no mail at all. Take what I can get I suppose…

[fishpro]

Letter carrier here, the posts above saying the if you put a "no flyers" sticker in / on your box you'll get no more flyers are correct. The exceptions to this are community newsletters and government issued flyers, which you'll continue to receive.

[alacringa]

Originally Posted by waldedw

Sakes alive enough already, Canada post must make millions of $$ per year delivering all the crap that ends up in my mail box, again today I had 17 pieces of mail in the box 15 of which were junk advertising mail and flyers.

I just shove them down the mail slot.