Junk mail. You either love it or hate it. There is no happy medium. You know what I mean by junk mail.
No, it’s not notices from Revenue Canada that you’re overdue on your income tax or the note from your dentist that if you don’t get in for a cleaning soon your teeth will fall out.
It’s not those interminable notices that you may have just won a million dollars, or that you’ve just made stage 55 of the latest sweepstakes.
In some circles that may qualify as junk mail, if you take junk mail to mean unwanted. But in the real world, junk mail is those unsolicited catalogues and flyers addressed “occupant,” or not addressed at all, that keep turning up in the mail box.
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Flyers for groceries and nylons and hardware and housewares and clothes and auction sales. Think of something somebody can sell, and you’ve probably had an unsolicited flyer to tell you about it.
Mostly, they’re garishly colored, on a cheaper grade of paper, and there’s always a special price attached. If statistics are to be believed, Canadians receive on average 87 pounds of the stuff every year.
Since junk mail started, there have been people who have revolted against the revolting. Every flyer that comes in my mailbox goes immediately, unread, into the recycling bin.
Mine has been a more or less silent protest. Others have been more vocal.
They have returned their junk mail to sender and Canada Post, put it in the round file, or left notes in and on and around their mailboxes that they don’t want the stuff.
At long last, though, there is hope.
Canada Post said recently that it will give people a choice. They can put a sticker or a homemade sign on their mailboxes saying they don’t want junk mail.
They will still receive material from electoral officers, House of Commons mailings, free community newspapers and junk mail distributed by private firms.
They won’t receive coupons, flyers, free samples, some government mailings, store catalogues and information from non-profit and community groups.
No doubt Canada Post won’t be issuing stickers. It’s up to individuals to make their signs themselves. No doubt in true bureaucratic fashion there will be issued guidelines as to what kind of stickers will constitute acceptable notice.
It’s a definite step in the right direction, however. Good for Canada Post.
I’ll be putting my sign up tomorrow.
