It emerged today that the Communication Workers' Union, which represents all staff in the Royal Mail, is in talks to abolish the three-items-per-week limit on the delivery of “unaddressed” mailings.
| Junk mail opt-outs |
To stop unaddressed junk mail, householders can write to: Householders can register at the Mailing Preference Service to stop addressed junk mail. More information on unwanted faxes: Fax Preference Service |
These are mailings that send publicity to “the occupier”, rather than a named individual at household addresses.
Sian Jones, a spokeswoman for the Union, told letsrecycle.com today that the agreement to scrap the limit on unaddressed junk mail was made earlier this year, but will have details finalised in meetings held this week.
She explained: “There was a cap of three items per week, and we have agreed to abolish that cap because it is a very good money maker for Royal Mail. We have weight limits in place on health and safety grounds, but we have agreed in principle to abolish the cap, provided our members have sufficient remuneration.”
Ms Jones insisted the agreement “sounds worse than it is”, and said that many Royal Mail sorting depots did not have the capacity for much of an increase in “door-to-door” deliveries at present.
Last year saw the Royal Mail delivering 3.3 billion items of unaddressed mail – an increase of 12.5% on the previous year. The move to increase this will increase the 78,000 tonnes of junk mail that ends up in landfill sites each year.
Opt-out
Householders are allowed to opt out of receiving unaddressed mail from Royal Mail by writing to the organisation's door-to-door opt outs department (see address above right).
The Royal Mail has been criticised throughout the national press today for not publicising how this can be done. The Royal Mail website contains a wealth of information for companies wanting to send unaddressed mail via the service, but no advice for householders on opting out.
Royal Mail
The Royal Mail told letsrecycle.com that it is only responsible for 15% of unaddressed mail sent in the UK, and householders opting out would have “no effect” on waste.
Royal Mail spokesman Patrick O'Neill said: “If householders opt out of this, it will be delivered by another company. It won't reduce the environmental impact or the amount of paper used.”
Today's uproar came as a spectacular backfire after the Royal Mail suspended a postman for giving advice to households on his round how to opt out of unaddressed mail.
Threat
Explaining its opt-out system for householders to stop unaddressed mail being sent to their homes, the Royal Mail today issued a veiled threat. It said if householders opt out of the junk mail, they will also opt out of important local government announcements and information mailings.
Mr O'Neill said: “It will stop day-to-day local government information being sent by us.”
Local authorities in the UK do use the unaddressed mail service of the Royal Mail to send information to residents – including information on recycling and waste services.
But, there are other avenues open to councils to send information to householders.
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“Effective”
One county council officer explained: “It is a cost effective way to get the information out, particularly if you are looking to target a small area, because you can send material by post codes. There is the possibility that people could miss out on information by stopping this, but there are always other ways of contacting people – stickers on bins, for example.”
The officer observed that ironically, one local district was about to send out an unaddressed mail shot to householders with information about how to stop junk mail being sent to their homes.
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