US thing I’m guessing? Here in Sweden, we don’t get much spam mail in the first place but you simply put a “no ads” sign on your mailbox and then only get the stuff you need. The 8 years I’ve lived in my current apartment I’ve gotten like 3 things that weren’t bills and stuff I need.
In the US, conservative lawmakers have been waging a quiet war against our postal system for a while now.
Highlights: They forced it to be self-sustaining (cut federal funding), then when that didn’t kill it they forced it to, in a very short time frame, pre-fund retirement benefits ahead of time for all current and former employees.
The postal system is more or less dependent on the funds it gets from spam mailers.
Edit: To clarify, I’m not insinuating that the bulk/majority of its income is from junk mail, I’m just stating that its not nothing, so they don’t really have an incentive to kill that source if revenue.
A tip if you’re in the USA, look at the top right of envelope. If it says “presorted standard” it’s garbage.
In Germany it’s “Dialogpost” or “Postwurf Spezial”
Der junkenmailer
I wish they would get rid of all mail except for person to person written letter, checks made out to me, and packages I’ve ordered. Everything else is garbage.
You’d be killing the USPS. They survive because of that garbage.
I would rather pay for more expensive stamps than a time and environmental cost.
Well, that might be how it’s currently primarily funded, but that doesn’t mean that that’s the way it has to be funded.
I was taught as a child to open plain envelopes first. Checks, credit cards, and other important stuff are put in boring envelopes.
I worked for a CC company and when we mailed checks to customers we told them “This check will come in a plain white envelope.” And the amount of people who thank me for letting them know because they might have thrown it away.
