» Home » Guide to stamping out junk mail
In this section
- Quick Guide
- Junk Buster
- Royal Mail's 'door-to-door' service
- Get a letterbox sticker
- The DMA's 'Your Choice' scheme
- Mailing Preference Service
- Edited electoral register
- Tick the box
- Return to sender
- Contact the sender
Other Junk
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Guide to stamping out junk mail
Step 2 - Get a letterbox sticker
Putting a 'no junk mail' sign on your door is the only way to stop unaddressed junk mail delivered by local businesses. If you have opted out of receiving Royal Mail door-drops, the sticker will also remind the postman not to push unaddressed leaflets through your letterbox (as, surprisingly, postmen have to learn by heart which households on their round have opted out!).
Stop Junk Mail sells two types of letterbox stickers. If you want to stop leaflets but do want to receive free local newspapers we have a sticker saying 'No Commercial Leaflets, Yes Free Newspapers'. For people wanting to stop both leaflets and free papers there is sticker with the text 'No Commercial Leaflets, No Free Newspapers'.
The stickers' text is carefully chosen. A problem with stickers simply saying 'no junk mail' is that people disagree about what is and isn't junk mail. For example, some people will regard a leaflet from a local ward councilor or a street newsletter as junk mail, while for other people this is valuable information. The same is true for free newspapers; to some they are a useful source of information, to others they are just junk mail in disguise.
The 'No/No', 'No/Yes' stickers not only separate leaflets and free newspapers, they also distinguish between commercial and non-commercial leaflets. The text 'No Commercial Leaflets' implies that non-commercial material is still welcome. Street newsletters and political leaflets are (or at least should be) informative rather than commercial and most people do not see such items as junk mail.
If you don't want to receive non-commercial mail items, you can always contact the sender directly.
Links and tools
What's next?
» Step 3 - Register with the DMA's 'Your Choice' scheme