Thousands more in Warwickshire say no to junk mail
A resounding cry of ‘no’ to junk mail is going up in Warwickshire as record numbers join a countywide campaign.
In early April Warwickshire County Council announced that 1,000 people a month had been signing up to scheme to stop junk mail coming to their home, pushing figures to a record 56,000 people in the county.
However, following the publicity in April more than 2,000 Warwickshire households per month have been joining the campaign, and currently more than 60,000 homes in the county are saying ‘no’ to junk mail.
This means that Warwickshire is now one of the top local authorities in the country in tackling the problem of junk mail going to homes and then straight into bins.
The average council across the UK has 13% of their residents signed up to the scheme, but Warwickshire has 26.5% committed to halting unwanted mail.
Warwickshire’s Waste Partnership teamed up with the Mail Preference Service to market everyone’s right not to receive unwanted Direct Mail through the letterbox.
According to the Post Office, the average adult in the UK receives 4kg of unwanted mail each year.
This means that in Warwickshire, if every household receives just one unwanted piece of Direct Mail a day that’s approximately 6 million pieces of wasted paper per month - around 90 per cent of all junk mail goes straight in the bin.
Cllr Martin Heatley, Warwickshire County Council’s Portfolio Holder for the Environment and the Waste Partnership Chair, said: “This campaign is really making an impact, and is going from strength to strength. Unwanted, unread junk mail has no place in anyone’s home.”
Residents can make a difference in the amount of rubbish generated within the county by registering with the Mailing Preference Service. If they would like to register now, they can write to “Mailing Preference Service, FREEPOST 29 (LON20771), London, W1E 0ZT” or simply go online to register through http://www.warwickshire.gov.uk/wastewise or they can also register directly on-line via the MPS website, http://www.mpsonline.org.uk