How to avoid junk mail in your letterbox
Facts about junk mail
Reducing junk mail and paper bills doesn't just reduce your household paper waste.
Junk mail includes unsolicited paper catalogues and flyers placed in your letterbox. It accounts for 6% of Australia’s total paper usage. This adds up to 240,000 tonnes of paper every single year. The water needed to produce that amount of paper could fill more than 8,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools.
However, only 20% of catalogues are actually read.
How to avoid junk mail
Add ‘No junk mail’ to your letter box
Adding a ‘No junk mail’ sticker on your letterbox will help keep junk mail out and reduce your household paper waste.
You can buy a ‘No junk mail’ sticker at a hardware store or a 2-dollar shop. Even easier, write ‘no junk mail’ on your letterbox in permanent marker.
Browse or subscribe to online catalogues
Would you still like to browse catalogues? Most large retailers provide an email newsletter with their latest offers and specials, which you can subscribe to on their website.
There are also catalogue aggregator websites, such as lasso, that provide dozens of the latest catalogues online. They also provide an email newsletter you can subscribe to.
Swap your paper bills for digital
Do you have paper bills piling up at home? Ask your billers to email their bills instead. They might even offer a discount of up to $2 on your total bill when you do.
By receiving bills online, you could save almost 3 kg of paper each year. This means you also avoid:
- wasting more than 10 kg of wood
- creating 13 kg of greenhouse gas emissions.
