International Review of Waste Management Policy - Department of ...

38.0 Policies For Dealing With Junk Mail
38.1 Description
Junk mail can be defined as direct mail (both to potential and existing customers),
door to door materials, inserts included with magazines and newspapers, and free
newspapers. Some of these materials are not delivered to householders but picked
up by potential customers “on the go” (flyers and free newspapers).
The size of the junk mail waste streams has been estimated, in the UK for example,
at 3-5% of household arisings, 731 whilst according to the French environment ministry
the average French household receives 40kg of unsolicited printed materials each
year.
38.2 Possible Measures to be Taken
There are various measures that could be taken to reduce these waste streams,
which range from an opt-out, application of producer responsibility to an outright ban.
An opt-out – already available in the form of the mailing preference service – requires
action by individual householders, is relatively cumbersome and only covers some
categories of junk mail. A ban may be seen as restricting the right to advertise
products, and so also is only applicable to certain defined categories of materials. A
number of measures that have been considered are listed in Table 38-1, which is
taken from a 2007 waste prevention report. 732
Whilst not all of these might be directly construed as ‘policies’, such as campaigns for
tighter targeting of recipients, they can complement policies which set the economic
climate for prevention, or they might be initiatives which are pursued with additional
vigour as a consequence of some form of producer responsibility.
731 National Resource & Waste Forum (2004) Household Waste Prevention Toolkit, Part C. Marketing
Behaviour Change.
732 Eunomia, The Environment Council, Oko Institut, TNO and Atlantic Consulting (2007) Household
Waste Prevention: Policy Side Research Programme, Final Report for Defra, April 2007.
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