[jambutty]

People should realise that the cost of sending junk mail is reflected in the cost of the product or service being advertised. So sending junk mail back only adds to the advertising budget and subsequently to the cost of the product or service. However if the advertising budget was reduced you can bet your bottom dollar (sorry too Americanised) bottom pound that the cost of the product or service would not come down. The business would just keep the extra profit.

If there were no junk mail the first casualty would be hundreds of printers up and down the country. Many would go bust through lack of orders. More people on the dole. The only real down side is the production of quality paper that requires new pulp and not recycled paper waste. But then with more recycled paper to hand mainly for newsprint, the newspapers would not need to buy so much ‘NEW’ paper to print their papers on.

On balance, getting rid of junk even being sent would have a greater adverse effect overall than just binning it for recycling.

So junk mail is here to stay, like it or not and it does give Royal Mail something to do. In fact if it weren’t for junk mail the cost of posting a normal letter would have to be higher.