What a blight on modern society! Junk mail in this country magically appears in your letterbox every day, and the volume seems to be getting larger every month. I now apologise to all distributors of unaddressed catelogues.

Sorry, I don’t want to buy your imported food special of the week. I don’t care about the latest High Definition TV receiver. I don’t want a bra that make my breasts look fuller (I am a man after all). Forgive me if I will not rush down to your dealership to buy the latest planet killing SUV. I am so sorry for not wanting that huge chainsaw that I will never use. Thanks for thinking that I need to keep in touch with the latest fashions from Europe, made by sweatshop labour here and in South East Asia.

See what I mean? And furthermore, most of this consumerist junk is printed on virgin paper and not recycled paper stock. Yes my friends, they cut down the lungs of our planet to deliver this stuff to your letterbox each and every day.

There is a very simple solution that from my experience works. You can order a sticker that says “No Advertising Material, Thank you” and put it on your letterbox. The flood of junk mail stops instantly! I did it in style with a little brass sign screwed in just above the letterbox that states “No Junk Mail Thankyou!” about three weeks ago. I don’t think it will fall off in a hurry. And guess what? The postman must have read it because I have junk mail no more. Just think if more people did this. How many trees would we save? I estimate that I would receive about 150gm of junk mail each day which used to get delivered about 5 days a week. So that is 150gm X 5 days X 52 weeks a year. That equals 39 kg of paper a year per household. This story in the Sydney based Daily Telegraph shows how bad this issue is getting. The article reports that;

“This year, eight billion unaddressed catalogues would be distributed, mainly to household letterboxes, an Australian Catalogue Association spokesman said.”

That is one hell of a lot of paper that may not be recycled, that litters our neighbourhoods on windy days, and advertising that tries to make us buy stuff we don’t really need, with money we don’t really have, to make us feel better about ourselves, and to show to people we don’t even like. The same old consumerism gone totally out of control. It reminded me of many other things in our civilisation that have gone the same way!

So, all I ask, is for those of you that don’t have a sign on your letterbox and hate junk mail, please put one up to help keep some of our old growth forests intact, and to cure just a little bit of the Affluenza that is rife in our society.

Edit: If you really want to read catalogues, have a look at this site. My dad pointed it out to me!