Goodbye Junk Mail - a New(ish) Year Solution!

As students, we are the worst for junk mail – with tenants changing yearly and basically no one ever leaving a forwarding address or updating their mailing information online every house receives loads of incorrect mail every week! On top of that, the political canvassing, fast food menus and random event flyers that come through often more than once for the same thing. Coming back to Manchester this winter break really brought my attention to the sheer amount of unwanted and unnecessary post coming through the letterbox every day. Imagine that per year, multiplied by the number of student houses in the UK, multiplied by the return of leafleting work, and so forth. All that paper, all that space in delivery vans contributing to gas emissions unnecessarily. SO, YOU ASK: what can I do about it? Plenty.

The 3 tips with the highest impact

Put a sign on your door or letterbox

Put a “no mail” sign on your door – this isn’t a legal thing but a request that is usually respected especially by national postal services and companies that care about their reputation… It doesn’t need to be fancy or official, a simple hand written sign is enough. If you find that you tend to get very specific junk mail still you can adjust it to include “no commercial leaflets” or “no political party leaflets” or “no junk mail; yes free newspapers”.

Contact Royal Mail

The sign alone may not be enough but it’s the quickest first action. You can support this by contacting Royal Mail to stop delivering leaflets and brochures sent through them. There is a form you can find on the Royal Mail website and other options to opt out of unaddressed mail deliveries and charity appeal communications too.

Return to sender

For items addressed to previous tenants or names you do not recognise you can put the mail back in the post box. Cross out the original address, circle the return address if there is one and write on the envelope something along the lines of “return to sender- tenant no longer at this address”. Mail from companies that provided a return address will be notified that this returned (a bit like bouncing an email back when an account has been terminated) and they will reach out to the individual to update their records. If it’s personal mail like a birthday card etc. the Royal Mail will do their best to rehome it. This can be done for junk mail too just say “unsolicited mail, return to sender” or something to that effect.

A few more tips if you get into it

Contact your electoral registration office

You can remove yourself from the ‘open register’ which is a list of people and addresses that can be bought and used for sending junk mail. This can be done when you fill out an electoral registration form and tick the box that says “opt out” of the open register.

Notify your landlord

Let your landlord know that you are receiving post for previous tenants, especially if it’s a monthly subscription to something, official documents like Government, NHS, insurance or personal cards. Your landlord will have the contact details of people who previously rented the property and so can get in touch. This does rely on the landlord being bothered or having a heart so don’t hold your breath! But sending them one email with the names of the individuals that you are receiving post for is minimal effort on your half.

Contact the sender directly

This is particularly useful if you’ve done the top three items and some companies still disregard your requests. It’s time to get sassy and write a letter! Include your full name and address, the date and a reasonable date you wish that they cease sending you junk mail (give them one month). This is for marketing things like spam advertisements. The Citizens Advice website recommends saying something like “please stop processing my personal data for direct marketing purposes in accordance with Article 21 of the General Data Protection Regulations”. Sometimes it does take a strongly worded letter to get what you want!

Prevention tips

Check your own details

Most of this blog is about dealing with other people’s post in your house but what about your previous houses? Check your subscriptions and accounts to make sure you have updated your address – this is particularly important for Government and NHS records. Update your friends and family too because there’s nothing sadder than Grandma sending a birthday card and it never getting to you! She walked to the post office and everything!

Leave a forwarding address

It might seem a bit old fashioned but leaving a forwarding address at your old place is a useful way of rerouting post. If something ends up at your old address the new tenants can write “tenant moved to X” and the senders can update the records plus the Royal Mail can redeliver it to your new location. You can also leave this information with the landlord should their new tenants use tip 5.

Take care with your tickboxes

To prevent junk mail in the first place, be super careful when you fill out forms online and see the tick boxes at the bottom like Terms and Conditions. Often the Terms and Conditions box is underneath a couple marketing tick boxes which people skim read – this is where you accidentally give permission to third parties to use your data or allow the company to contact you with news and marketing updates. Avoid this in the first place and you reduce the need for action.

We all know that the new year doesn't reeeally start until February, when exams are officially over and the new semester is beginning, so why not take this simple but effective step to reduce the environmental impact of your household?


Author: Holly