Get your Junk out

I discovered in the mail this week, buried in the recent treaty between the Royal Mail and the Postal workers Union, a snippet that was of passing interest. A detail that seems to have whizzed past most people attention.

Specifically, the long standing clause limiting the amount of junk mail that can be delivered is being, if not scrapped, then watered down, meaning that we could all be about to be having trouble getting our front doors open for the snow drifts of “personal offers” and pizza menus.

Marvellous.

Now there is a way to get yourself off the junk mail list, google it if you are interested, but what interested me in this is that Royal Mail is largely dependant on the revenue from junk mail delivery to remain solvent. Now while I dont actually like junk mail, given I would like the lack of the Royal Mail SIGNIFICANTLY more, this gave me pause. The bright digital utopian future of the paperless world is not with us yet, and probably wont be until we develop site to site transporter technology. So until that day, real things will need to be shoved through meatspace. While that has to happen, organisations like the Royal Mail have an important role to play.

Personally I would rather be giving my money to an effectively not-for-profit organisation rather than, say, Richard Branson or that little man from Ryanair.

But how big a deal is it, really, to sort and throw out the unwanted advertising? If you do it each day, not so much really.

To be honest, there is a small evil pleasure. Each time I throw out those badly designed eyesores, I can see pennies from some mindless advertiser washing down the drain. they’re advertising messages are not getting into my brain, they are waisting their effort.

So for the time being, I am not going to block junk mail. I am going to do a little to help Royal Mail stay afloat and sort the unwanted advertising straight to the recycling.