A resident of Christchurch, New Zealand, has collected a year's worth of junk mail. The stack he collected last year is 1.7m high and weighs 70kg.

"I was curious to see how much mail came in the post, because I don't like waste", Ross Johnston told press.co.nz.

Mr Johnston first collected a year's worth of junk mail in 1992 and repeated the exercise in 2006. This time he collected 1.7m / 70kg of junk mail - more than Mr Johnston himself and an increase of 40% compared with the amount of junk mail he collected 14 years ago.

Mr Johnston said he thought there were far too many circulars as 17 trees went into the production of each tonne of paper - 153,000 trees for all Christchurch's junk mail.

The Green Party in Christchurch said it had introduced a waste minimisation bill intended to levy a fee on companies according to their waste production. "Waste is a major source of greenhouse gases and uses a lot of resources that can be used elsewhere," the party's co-leader said.