Canada Post asks Canadians to start accepting junk mail

Canada Post asks Canadians to start accepting junk mail.


See video:
http://globalnews.ca/news/585922/canada-post-opts-for-junk-mail/

Effects of Junk Mail on the Environment


Studies regarding junk mail (with the exception of catalogs and phonebooks) have shown that the average household gets sent only 1.5 personal letters a week while receiving in average 16 envelopes of junk mail. Doing the math, when adding up the weight of the junk mail, using a conservative estimated average weight of 2oz per letter, it amounts to 41 pounds of junk mail per house per year! The 2001 Canadian Census reported there to be 11.5 million households, which means just under one BILLION pounds of junk mail per year in Canada only. In other words, that's roughly 18 times the weight of the Titanic! If an average mailing costs 10 cents per letter, it sums up to about $250 million per year for these useless mailings, 40% of which go directly to the garbage bin unread and only 2% of which are responded to.

The worse thing about junk mail is not just the fact that we receive it. Its negative environmental impact is astounding: forests are destroyed to make pulp, toxic chemicals are used to print them, landfills are clogged, and to dispose of them is pricey, among other issues. As one can visibly understand, junk mail is not just a nuisance to us; it's to the environment as well.

The negative effects of logging to build the paper used for junk mail are everywhere. Deforestation destroys the equilibrium of forest ecosystems, which can erode the soil, destroy habitats, damage water tables, and impact on the environment in many other ways. Disappearance of forests renders the atmosphere unstable by taking away trees that would otherwise eliminate carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) from the air. The damage to the water tables that can be caused by deforestation dries drying otherwise fertile soil, which then becomes highly prone to erosion and further soil damage. Erosion due to deforestation can in turn increase the risk of drought or flooding in waterways. Erosion is not the only soil damage. Working with ground water can result in sucking away

STOP JUNK MAIL

BANNING JUNK MAIL



Discussion points:
- Defining Junk Mail: unaddressed pieced of mail or unsolicited advertising inserts in newspapers.
- Direct Marketing keeps people employed and generates business.
- Large quantities of junk mail are dropped in the waste bins, not all of it is recyclable.. add the impact of the colours, chemicals..
- A lot of fresh water is used in the process of recycling.
- Follow the money to find out - Canada Post has a large chunk of it's revenue generated from distributing junk mail.
- On the other hand, Canadians care about the environment.
- How can we get Direct Marketing go all green - ideas, spam??
- Why is our government (actually all levels of it) still protecting this dirty business?
- Paul Bies, from Mistique.Ca agrees that junk mail (according to the definition above) should be banned.
- Ray Glowa from GreenAgeMedia urges us to do something about it.

Solutions suggested:
- Ban Junk Mail - everyone agrees.
- Place a RED DOT in your mailbox and talk to your mailman - no junk please (does not work in condos)


Stop Bell Canada admail and promotional offers

I emailed privacy@bell.ca a few years ago, and told them to stop sending all addressed admail to this address and stop calling the number with sales pitches. I even got a reply from someone acknowledging my request. Havent had a call or any junkmail from Bell since.

On my Bell phone line invoice it shows this.
"Telemarketing Exclusion Code - $0.00"

The only trouble with that one is that it expires after I think it's 2 years. I made it plain when I contacted the exec office that I didn't want anyone calling as long as my name was associated with that phone number!

why is Bell the only company to charge its customers a fee for receiving a bill?

How can I Stop Bell Canada admail and promotional offers ??

Stop receiving junk mail!

Fed up of junk mail? I am! Here's how you can reduce it!
When the bulk of your mail is junk, it makes you question how many trees were cut down just to be thrown out.  And to make matters worse, my mail box is not only filled with my junk mail, but that for the previous two tenants despite efforts to “return to sender”.
In order to help you go green and stop the insanity that is junk mail, here are some quick and easy steps you can take.
First things first, we need to make a distinction about the 2 types of junk mail; addressed and unaddressed.  Addressed mail (admail as referred to by direct marketers) is addressed to you with your name and address. This is because you appear on a mailing list somewhere.  Unaddressed mail, is pure junk, usually in the form of grocery store flyers, flyers from realtors and anything else that is unsolicited.
Call Canada Post at 1-866-607-6301 to stop receiving unaddressed mail

Canada Post is telling Canadians Junk mail is good for you,




The national postal service has been sending out letters across the country to those with the audacity to post “no flyer” signs on their mailbox, telling the reader they are missing out on “being connected with your local community.”

Canada Post has mailed more than 900,000 of the letters in hopes the recipients might change their mind.
“Your address is part of Canada Posts’ Consumers’ Choice database as a result of having a ‘no flyer’ notice on your mailbox,” read the letter. “You are currently not receiving unaddressed mail delivered by Canada Post that your neighbours are receiving. This includes mail that can save you money and keep you connected with your local community.”

To receive unaddressed mail (i.e. junk mail), Canada Post asks recipients to sign up by sending an enclosed paid postage card and remove their no flyer notices from their mailboxes.

Canada Post spokesperson Anick Losier says the letters were intended to update its Consumer’s Choice program, saying the program has not kept pace with Canadians who have changed their addresses.

Canada Post How Do I Stop Delivery of Admail - Solution | Solved | Guaranteed

Canada Post 
How Do I Stop Delivery of Admail  - Guaranteed 



Canada Post - Customer Service
Phone::  1-866-607-6301 -  1 - 1 - 0 - 0 - 0


1.)  SOLUTION #1a
...as per Canada Post - Customer Service
TAPE OR STICKER IN THE MAILBOX 
saying:   "NO AD MAIL"  “no flyers/junk mail”,  "NO FLYERS / JUNK MAIL







2.) SOLUTION #1b
...as per Canada Post - Customer Service
Canada Post - will return to sender and charge sender (charge BELL CANADA and ROGERS COMMUNICATION)
if letter is Addressed To:     HOME OWNER / RESIDENT / occupant
write on the letter: "RETURN TO SENDER REFUSED"

!!!!  DONE 


3.) SOLUTION #2

CMA - Canadian Marketing Association
 - DO NOT MAIL - DO NOT CALL - CMA Do Not Contact Service
How do I get my name off mailing lists?
The Canadian Marketing Association operates a Do Not Contact Service which is free to consumers.

STOP unwanted waste delivered to your porch

How to stop unwanted waste delivered to your porch?
1. Call the Canada Post to request no more junk mail: 1-866-607-6301.
2. Adhere a “No Junk Mail” sign to your mailbox.
Stop unwanted newspapers by calling them directly. It’s a tedious job, but someone has to do it, and because many of these papers are opt-out, you are the only one who can take action.

Canada Post asks Canadians to start accepting junk mail
http://globalnews.ca/news/585922/canada-post-opts-for-junk-mail/


Screw junk mail - how to stop it

The junk mail we receive at home is garbage-in-garbage-out, since we don’t read it at all, including various weekly newspapers. When I think of the energy and forest resources used for absolutely no reason, I get kind of ticked off. When going to the skytrain or bus loop, ever had someone thrust a paper in your face? The papers might get read while on the train but often get left as trash on sidewalks or on buses and trains. Paper junk mail seems like a gigantic waste.


However, as we’ve noticed everywhere we have lived in the lower mainland–from Burnaby to Port Moody to Coquitlam–junk mail advertisements and weekly papers are delivered on an opt-out basis. You will automatically get a pile of junk each week, whether or not you asked for it or like it. It’s a special prize just for living at a residence.

I can’t help think of this model of consumerism: refuse, reuse, reduce, recycle. In that order. I’m at number one here: I wanted to refuse mail I never asked to receive.

When we moved to Coquitlam last year, the amount of newspapers we got delivered to our porch was annoying, but we decided to keep the newspapers at least for a while, for helping to build fires in the winter. I began to stuff newspapers in an out-of-the-way kitchen cabinet, but by spring, the cabinet had long been full and we’d used hardly any of the paper saved. So we began recycling it. Our recycling day is Thursday. I recall on Wednesdays, coming home from work to retrieve another stack of classifieds, only to directly put them in our paper recycling bag for next day pickup. The whole process was entirely ridiculous.

I bought a “No Junk Mail” sign and stuck it on our mailbox. It’s in plain sight. But both the post office and newspaper deliveries ignored my sign. We continued to get junk mail.


I researched a little online about how to stop junk mail and found out that the Canada Post will stop sending most admail if you request it. Supposedly they will abide by a “No Junk Mail” sign, but that didn’t happen. After I called, however, they stopped delivering admail. They say that some admail cannot be stopped, however, such as political mail.


Our “No Junk Mail” sign did not stop those pesky free newspapers either. One day we received a letter addressed to a previous tenant in the house. We marked the letter “Return to Sender” and stuck it on the lower portion of our mailbox, which holds mail, hoping that our letter carrier would see it and pick it up the next day. The next morning, beneath our “No Junk Mail” sign, the rack was stuffed with newspaper advertisements, and whoever had delivered them had thrown the Return to Sender letter on our porch.
 
We were getting The Now News, Tricities News, and a few other unwanted papers each week. I wanted to figure out how to stop these deliveries and did an online search, leading to the Red Dot Campaign. I am not sure if that campaign still exists. The website is still up, but their latest news is from 2009 and nobody from the organization returned an email when I wrote to see if they were still active. I kind of came to a dead end when finding some help.
So, every time we got a newspaper on our porch or in rack below our mailbox, I called the paper to opt out of delivery. This took a while since we received so many different papers.
After several weeks, our unwanted ad-paper delivery seemed to stop! Then yesterday we arrived home to see Coquitlam Now, a Glacier Media publication, on our porch. I had called them two weeks ago to stop the paper. And I called a second time this morning to remind them that we do not want that paper. We’ll see if they stop delivering.
I learned from the Red Dot Campaign that:
A recent Canadian Marketing Study quoted in the Flyer Distribution Standards Association newsletter suggests that :
67% of Canadians are not interested in flyers and advertising that comes in the mail.
25% of Canadians discard them without reading.
But most people don’t try to stop the junk mail. According to CBC, back when the Red Dot Campaign was in full swing:
Despite the fact that Canada Post has offered the opt-out program for more than 10 years, the corporation says only two per cent of Canadians use it. [from 2008]
One unnerved junk-mail recipient says to just send it back.
According to The Star, back when the Red Dot Campaign was active, Canada Post spokeswoman Lillian Au said that the campaign was unnecessary since Canada Post had had the opt-out option for years. Since 2% of Canadians (out of 67% who are uninterested) do anything about stopping junk mail, it seems to me a campaign is needed for awareness purposes.
According to the Star article linked above:

Au acknowledged that unaddressed advertising mail is one of Canada Post’s fastest growing revenue streams – it brought in $339 million in 2006, up 14.4 per cent from 2005 – and helps keep costs down for consumers, while allowing small businesses to advertise in an affordable way.
Almost all of the promotional mail is recyclable and printed on recycled paper, she added.
I cannot find any source to back up how many flyers and other ad material is really recycled. Companies who make the ads will make those decisions, and that statistic is not cited. Also, if up to 67% of Canadians aren’t interested in junk mail, just how effective is that advertising? 100% ineffective from the 25% of people just throwing out the paper, that’s for sure!
Regardless, junk mail takes energy to produce, even if it is recycled or recyclable. Unwanted and unused products waste 100% of the forest resource (even if a byproduct), other energy resources, shipping, mailing, printing, and either secondary recycling processes or landfill space–simply due to the fact that none of that energy is ever consumed in the end.
As for helping small businesses grow and continued revenue for Canada Post, I’m all for that. But unsolicited paper mail is an old industry that needs to be phased out due to its environmental impact. Advertising has gone digital now, and due to smarter search engines like Google, advertising is more direct, aligning with consumers’ personal interests. What’s more, the same papers getting delivered and thrown out or recycled in the lower mainland are also online, so if someone really wanted to read them, they could go online to do so.
There are still many issues surrounding electronic junk mail, but with anti-spam tools, you most likely do not ever have to deal with e-mail junk mail and can just ignore ads that pop up in searches, if you want. Of course, some ads might be of interest, and that’s the beauty of smart advertising. The bottom line is: zero waste, zero trees cut down.
Back to the viability and environmental impact of printed newspapers:
According to Pulp and Paper Products Canada:

A large portion of the newsprint produced worldwide is based on mechanical pulp (a by-product fibre, which remains after sawmills have optimized the cutting of logs into lumber) and increasing amounts are made, partly or entirely, from recovered fibre, such as old newspapers and old magazines. Depending on the type of mechanical pulp used, some chemical pulp may be added to strengthen the sheet. However, according to Wikipedia:

In the US, the Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 44% of junk mail is discarded without being opened or read, equalling four million tons of waste paper per year,[28] with 32% recovered for recycling.[29] Further, the Ohio Office of Compliance Assistance and Pollution Prevention (OCAPP) estimates that 250,000 homes could be heated for a single day’s junk mail (70,000,000,000,000/3 btus of energy or 28,870,000,000/21 kwh of energy).[30]
The CO2 emissions from 41 pounds of advertising mail received annually by the average US consumer is about 47.6 kilograms (105 pounds) according to one study.[33] The loss of natural habitat potential from the 41 pounds of advertising mail is estimated to be 36.6 square metres (396 square feet).[34] Mike Berners-Lee estimates that receiving five letters per day plus two printed catalogs per week results in 480 kilograms (1,100 lb) CO2e per year. This same boreal forest being logged for junk mail fiber is also being logged to make room for increased oil sands mining.

How to stop unwanted waste delivered to your porch?
1. Call the Canada Post to request no more junk mail: 1-866-607-6301.
2. Adhere a “No Junk Mail” sign to your mailbox.
Stop unwanted newspapers by calling them directly. It’s a tedious job, but someone has to do it, and because many of these papers are opt-out, you are the only one who can take action. See a listing of newspapers here:Open Directory.