27 May 2007 - The Direct Marketing Association has said that the government's new waste strategy would be bad for the direct marketing industry, consumers and Royal Mail.
In the waste strategy white paper, published on Thursday, the government stated that it will work with the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) to allow householders to opt-out of receiving unaddressed junk mail. At present the Mailing Preference Service (MPS) only allows people to opt-out of addressed junk mail. Companies can still send unsolicited mail to people who have registered with the MPS by sending it to a generic address, such as 'to the occupier'.
The environment secretary, David Miliband, also warned the DMA that the government is considering scrapping the MPS in favour of a much stricter regime. The idea is to replace the MPS with an opt-in system, whereby people would only receive junk mail if they contacted a central register and added their name to a list.
In its response to the waste strategy, the DMA warned that changing to an opt-in regime would have negative effects for the industry, consumers and Royal Mail. In a statement the DMA said that "a significant number of jobs" depend on the direct mail industry and that "without the revenue generated by direct mail, the ability of Royal Mail to maintain a universal service at a competitive price to the consumer would be severely under threat."
However, the DMA said it does recognise that the consumer has the right to say 'no' and conceded that the industry now faces "a number of challenges to change behaviour".
Critics of the present MPS have welcomed the government's announcements. Stop Junk Mail co-ordinator Robert Rijkhoff commented: "David Miliband is right in saying that recycling and reusing waste is not enough; we need to prevent waste in the first place. Stopping junk mail is a good start. Unsolicited mail is unpopular and it's fairly easy to put a stop to it.
"An opt-in system would mean that the direct marketing industry has to find other, more customer-friendly and less polluting ways of advertising. It is about time the industry recognises that delivering advertisements to people who are not interested does not make sense and we are hopeful that the industry will start focusing on other, more creative ways to promote products and services. A development like this wouldn't necessarily mean that jobs will be lost. On the contrary, it could create jobs."