You've got (junk) mail
This
date was etched on my mind:
It
wasn’t the birthday, wedding anniversary, death anniversary, party, etc. of
anybody I know. It was the day I received my first Christmas shopping catalogue
for the year.
August? Some of us haven’t even tasted summer weather!
In
the event that I do return to academia (when my son is happy for me to work
outside the home), I plan to carve out my own sub-discipline in anthropology. I
would like to establish ‘anthropology of junk’ as a must-have in any decent
anthropology department.
I
can picture it now at my funeral: friends and colleagues would say, ‘Siew Peng will be forever remembered for her rubbish.’
Paper,
plastic, food, music, toys, gadgets, consumer goods, why is there so much of
what we don’t need around us?
Look
in some shopping catalogues and you would find: tea bag squeezer, and used tea
bag holder. Fact is I actually had to order one of these for uhm,
mother-in-law. She was on her way to getting a tea bag holder when I offered
her one of my old swing-top bins that could fit on her counter top.
What’s
wrong with a spoon against the side of a cup/mug? Or any old dish for the bags
to go into? They make tea in a pot any way. So does it really matter?
It’s
an advertising mantra, I guess. If there isn’t a need, create one.
It is
the junk mail that gets me down. We have a box by the door into which all
apparent junk mail goes, including the ‘You have been selected ….’ types. Every
two weeks, before the recycling truck comes to empty the recycling box, I would
have to sit for half an hour sorting the plastics
from the envelopes from the paper from the paper on which they have
printed our personal details.
This
last category has to be shredded. Even more work. Some of us are paranoid about
identity theft. It happened to a friend, and it is a nightmare.
The paper: if they can afford to send out
so much stuff with beautiful models advertising their wares, the mark-ups must
be excessive. Or worse, the actual producers of the goods might not be paid a fair wage. I avoid buying from such.
What
I cannot understand is why companies send multiple copies of catalogues to
husband and wife at the same address. I went through one surname and two title
changes in the last few years and we get catalogues addressed to me as a ‘Miss’,
‘Mrs’ and ‘Dr’ with a combination of maiden and married names. Don’t these
companies ever do a cull of their mailing lists?
Even
when we only buy online, some retailers insist on sending us print catalogues.
It is mad.
The envelopes: return envelopes with no
stamps are kept for recycling (eg when sending notes
to parents/teachers at school). The prepaid ones I use to write messages to the
sender (see below**).
As
for plastics, these days so much
junk mail come encased in plastics. It is SO depressing, knowing that
manufacturers of everything plastic are whizzing around in their fuel-guzzling
cars ….
All this despite my diligently ticking or un-ticking the box in printed
or online forms that say ‘I DO NOT wish to receive unsolicited mail’.
We’ve
come to the point of not buying from new catalogues for fear of being snowed
under by yet more catalogues.
It
appears that if you bought once from a retailer, they have the right to keep
sending you stuff. Even the Mail Preferences Service won’t stop them. But do
they also have the right to decide which other retailers might be of interest
to me?
I
would like to propose a new ‘Source of
Information’ Law (which conveniently spells 'SOIL'): When Company (A) mails out unsolicited mail to a new
recipient, the law should require that they include details on the Company/Retailer/Organization
(B) which had provided or sold on these details to Company A.
The
recipient can then either choose to (1) lodge an official complaint with
Company B, or (2) stop buying from Company B altogether, but only after lodging
the complaint anyway.
Perhaps this would force retailers - at last - to be more discriminate about divulging their customers' details to others. What
do you think? Send Feedback as usual by using our Feedback Form or email shopkeeper@organic-ally.co.uk. Or email this idea to a friend.
**Meanwhile, I am copying part
of an email making the rounds:
When you get “ads” enclosed
with your phone or utility bill, return these “ads” with your payment. Let the
sending companies throw their own junk mail away.
When you get those “pre-approved”
letters in the mail for everything from credit cards to 2nd mortgages and
similar type junk, do not throw away the return
envelope.
Most of these come with
postage-paid return envelopes, right? It
costs them more than the regular 24p postage “IF” and when they receive them back.
It costs them nothing if you
throw them away! The postage was around 29p before the last increase and it is according to the weight. In that case,
why not get rid of some of your other junk mail and put it in their
postage-paid return envelopes.
For example; send an ad for
your local chimney cleaner to [name of credit card company – can’t repeat it
for legal reasons]. Send a pizza coupon
to [name of bank]. If you didn’t get anything else that day, then just send
them their blank application back! If you want to remain anonymous, just make
sure your name isn’t on anything you send them. You can even send the envelope
back empty if you want to just to
keep them guessing! It still costs them 24p.
The banks and credit card
companies are currently getting a lot of their own junk back in the mail, but
folks, we need to overwhelm them.
Let’s let them know what it’s like to get lots of junk mail, and best of all
they’re paying for it...Twice!
Let’s help keep our postal
service busy since they are saying that e-mail is cutting into their business
profits, and that’s why they need to increase postage costs again. You get the idea?
If enough people follow these
tips, it will work!
Siew Peng
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