Lose 11.3 kgs in a year!
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Look what we found abandoned on our doorstep last week. I’d quite forgotten about this beauty. I stepped out into the glorious spring sunshine to see our new phone book sulking on the doorstep. I can’t remember the last time I used a phonebook – probably 8 years ago. I have the internet; this wonderful servant, who is only too happy to tell me any telephone number I should need and I have no need for a giant tome of numbers taking up space on my bookshelves.
I felt quite miffed because I’d not asked for this phonebook. Oh, no, it was assumed I wanted one. And we all know what happens when we assume things in life – we make an ass of u and me.
It’s shrink wrapped in plastic and weighs 675 gms.
Multiply that by however many households are in the UK and that’s a whole heaping pile of plastic and trees. I KNOW the directory can be recycled and I expect the plastic is polythene which can be recycled too. But that’s not the point. This time last year I dumped the whole lot in the bin which I would ASSUME means the majority of other householders who don’t want their phonebooks and can’t be bothered to rip of the plastic to recycle the book will do exactly the same.
Thatsalotalandfill.
This prompted me to get off my derrière and do something about preventing this happening again. I was just about to ‘phone up BT and give them a piece of my mind make a polite request, when I received an email from the lovely Robert at Stop Junk Mail.
You might remember he gave away one of his fabulous stop junk mail kits last year on our site.
Robert told me about an exciting new application he had developed called Junk Buster. This nifty piece of software is free to use and makes it possible for people in the UK to register with six different junk mail opt-out schemes in one go (including opt-outs for the Yellow Pages, Thomson Local and BT Telephone Directory). A hail and hearty slap on the bottom for Robert!
It’s good news people; you no longer have to contact opt-out schemes separately! I’ve done this in the past and got my knickers in a bit of a twist. I’ve used Robert’s Junk Buster widget and it took me less than a minute to complete the process. I had an opt out form from Royal Mail within 2 days (informing me that all sorts of untold horrors would befall on my household if I actually went through with it) which I have duly signed and sent back already.
According to Robert, the average household will be able to reduce their junk mail by 11.3kgs or 250 piece per year by using his funky Junk Buster widget.
We signed up for the Mail Preference Service a few years ago to reduce junk mail, but what you are never told (apart from Robert who tell you the real deal), is that your opt out lapses after two years, so you need to renew it.
That will explain that huge swell of junk we’ve recently had littering our porch floor then.
&*!!&”*S
Anyway, i’m now all signed up and all I have to do is wait for the pounds to drop off – now that’s my kinda diet 😉
Why not sign up today?
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Tags: junk mail
Just signed up and passed on to other possible interested parties 🙂 Thank you Mrs G and Robert.
THanks for this Mrs G, I thought it funny we had started to get some mailsort again.
Have signed up for this and put a link onto my blog as well.
Thanks for that. I’ve noticed an increase in junk mail lately, so have re-registered. I’ve also applied for a Royal Mail opt out form on the strength of the information given. I had e-mailed them before, but was a bit worried about missing out on ‘important’ information.
I understand the junk mail is quite a good income generator for them, so perhaps we are now obliged to send more letters and parcels so they don’t lose out??
Thanks for the slap 🙂
I agree with Karin’s suggestion to start sending more real letters. It’s no fun for postmen to deliver nothing but bills and junk mail. Another idea is to return any addressed junk mail to the sender. The junk mailer has to pay Royal Mail the postage for this…
Keep up the good work!
Brilliant idea, have signed up too and grabbed the url to put in my school’s newsletter this week!! There have to be some perks to having to write it every week, and that gives me access to 60 plus families too!
I signed up with the MPS ages ago, never knew it defaulted back after 2 years. That’s dead sneaky, grrrrrrrrrr.
@Robert: I send lots of real letters to companies who send me junk mail, usually alongside their own returned junkmail, in their own reply paid envelopes. Great fun!!
Well, we still have the phone books from… 2002!! (just went&checked!) & oddly enough, many times they still come handy!
we have internet too, but sometimes it’s down or someone else is busy on the PC… not so long ago a neighbour came & got the right address from one of them.. it still continues to baffle me 🙂
Luckily here you have to go get ’em, they’re not delivered like this..
But don’t start me on the junk mail.. Here, you can buy a sticker and put it on your mailbox, but alas Dad and Sis are against this! me &Mum would happily cancel it all! (like Granny has.. one person with some sensibility re: this in the family!)
I love the effect opting out and putting a sticker on my mail box has had. I only get mail I want now.
Don’t worry Mrs. G, from experience I can promise you that the Phone Book is great for lighting your open fire with.
I really need to get off the phone book mailing list too…I have to figure out how to do that here in the US.
Got home from town to find my phonebook thru my letterbox.
Annoyingly I did phone them last year and said I no longer wanted it.
Thank you for that :OD
Grrrrrr!!!!!
I don’t $!@@%! believe it! 2 years running I’ve contacted Yellow Pages and very politely told them what to do with their product. I also opted out again with Junk Buster, but what was on my doorstep this morning! Aaaaarrrgghh!!
However, the good news is the Master P has a Yellow Woods collection at school and although it took him a while to understand that I don’t want this years version, he will now happily add it to the collection at school.
Oh Nooooo, Poppy – that is SO annoying. At least master P can make use of it, but geesh; that’s so not the point 🙁 **stamps foot**