# Why do I have to accept junk mail? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 31, 2010, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936 "2010-10-31T00:01:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 4:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/21 "2010-10-31T04:10:48Z")
> [@Brown\_Eyed\_Girl](#): > > Sure. A good start would be to categorize unsolicited mail as Unsolicited Mail (UM). Unsolicited Mail may include business flyers and advertisements, credit card offers, and any other type of ‘cold’ mailing. Mailers can get discounted postage for this category, which will be noted on the postage, but may not use the category for anything other than unsolicited mail or be fined heavily and even restricted from using it. Consumers may OPT OUT of receiving this category of mail on an annual basis in much the same way the DNC list works. It’s easy enough for the postal carrier to determine those who have opted out because you get a label to put on your mailbox indicating UM is not deliverable. Any mailers disregarding/bypassing the Opt Out by miscategorizing mailouts are fined heavily. > > Lastly, junk mail is not trash. The vast majority of it is recyclable material. Please recycle it. I like the idea of a UM classification. That’s a great idea. [nitpick] There’s nothing wrong with referring to it as trash. The word trash does not mean or imply that it cannot be recycled. [ > [@dictionary.com](#): > > trash    > –noun > > 1. anything worthless, useless, or discarded; rubbish. ]([http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trash](http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/trash)) [/nitpick] ---
**Author:** ![Musicat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/musicat/32/20189_2.png) [@Musicat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Musicat)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 4:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/22 "2010-10-31T04:14:59Z")
I like junk mail. It costs me nothing, and burns in my fireplace nicely. Other fuel I have to pay for, but not junk mail. Send more, so I can keep my house warm! If only I could get on 50 more mailing lists, I wouldn’t have to buy propane this winter. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 7:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/23 "2010-10-31T07:14:14Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > Well, I’d be okay with that. At least I wouldn’t get the weekly 80 page grocery store coupon ads. That would be a whole lot of trash I wouldn’t have to be responsible for. > > I have to keep wondering tho: legally, why am I obligated to accept these mailings? You aren’t obligated to accept these mailings. You can take them straight from your mailbox to the trash can or the recycle bin. But the issue is that the mailman IS obligated to deliver these mailings to your mailbox. That’s federal law. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 7:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/24 "2010-10-31T07:23:40Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > You aren’t obligated to accept these mailings. You can take them straight from your mailbox to the trash can or the recycle bin. That’s taking possession of them, which is the same as accepting them, which is what I object to having to do. > [@suranyi](#): > > But the issue is that the mailman IS obligated to deliver these mailings to your mailbox. That’s federal law. I suspect it is the law, but could you cite which law? And that doesn’t answer the question of why, legally, I have to accept (or, if you prefer: take possession of) them. ---
**Author:** ![Desert\_Nomad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/desert_nomad/32/177_2.png) [@Desert\_Nomad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Desert_Nomad)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 11:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/25 "2010-10-31T11:45:29Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Not sure where you are, but in Australia and New Zealand that’s exactly what people do- put a “NO JUNK MAIL” sign on their letterbox, and hey presto, the junk mail stops. Same in the Czech Republic. ---
**Author:** ![KinkiNipponTourist](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/e9bcb4/32.png) [@KinkiNipponTourist](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KinkiNipponTourist)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 12:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/26 "2010-10-31T12:19:36Z")
As noted by other posters, a lot of junk mail lately is tarted up to look, on first glimpse, like legit mail. If the folks delivering it had to sort thru, it would take them a helluva long time to deliver mail, too. Here in Japan, our mailboxes get stuffed with crap fliers for everything from take-out pizza to order-in massage by young nubile women. I bet easily 60% of what’s in my mailbox is crap. But because my (and most) apartment building(s) put a big trash bin right beneath the mailboxes in the entranceway to the building, it’s an easy skim and quick toss. If I had to cart all that crap upstairs to my apartment to toss it, I’d be annoyed I suppose. ---
**Author:** ![AutumnLeaves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/45deac/32.png) [@AutumnLeaves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AutumnLeaves)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/27 "2010-10-31T15:05:58Z")
> [@Desert\_Nomad](#): > > Same in the Czech Republic. It was the same in Canada, when I lived there. Putting “No flyers or junk mail” on the mailbox reduced pretty much everything except my phone bill and credit card statements. That being said, the only junk mail I ever got was pizza and sushi flyers, with the occasional Canadian Tire flyer. I don’t find those “You’ve been preapproved for a credit card!” or “You may already be a winner!” style mailings common in Canada, and I’ve never received any in my life. Those seem to be the sort of mailings the OP is talking about. I can’t see any real way for the postal service to fix that. They can’t really judge what you should and shouldn’t be receiving if it’s addressed to you, and would you want them to? How would they determine if it’s an actual credit card statement, or mail from a company offering you a card? ---
**Author:** ![Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/do_not_taunt/32/2968_2.png) [@Do\_Not\_Taunt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Do_Not_Taunt)\ **Post date:** [October 31, 2010, 11:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/28 "2010-10-31T23:23:52Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > I’ve tried that, but it doesn’t stop. Why would it? :rolleyes: All the paper has to do is tell me “okay, we’ll stop doing that” over the phone, and then conveniently never enter that into their supposed database of people who don’t want their newspaper. Nobody keeps a database like that. My first job was delivering a free newspaper. Along with a weekly delivery of newspapers and bags, I also received a list of houses not to deliver to. I seem to recall it helpfully called out addresses that had been added to the list since last week. Of course, this was many years ago, when databases like that we technologically feasible. These days, who knows? ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 12:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/29 "2010-11-01T00:01:10Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > That’s taking possession of them, which is the same as accepting them, which is what I object to having to do. > > I suspect it is the law, but could you cite which law? > > And that doesn’t answer the question of why, legally, I have to accept (or, if you prefer: take possession of) them. I’ll give you the laws below, but to answer your last question, I don’t know what you could do, except to leave them in your mailbox until it gets full. I mean, what else could you do? Stand in front of your mailbox and physically prevent the mailman from putting the unwanted mail in your box? 18 USC 1700: Whoever, having taken charge of any mail, voluntarily quits or deserts the same before he has delivered it into the post office at the termination of the route, or to some known mail carrier, messenger, agent, or other employee in the Postal Service authorized to receive the same, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both. 18 USC 1701: Whoever knowingly and willfully obstructs or retards the passage of the mail, or any carrier or conveyance carrying the mail, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than six months, or both. 18 USC 1703: (a) Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, unlawfully secretes, destroys, detains, delays, or opens any letter, postal card, package, bag, or mail entrusted to him or which shall come into his possession, and which was intended to be conveyed by mail, or carried or delivered by any carrier or other employee of the Postal Service, or forwarded through or delivered from any post office or station thereof established by authority of the Postmaster General or the Postal Service, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. (b) Whoever, being a Postal Service officer or employee, improperly detains, delays, or destroys any newspaper, or permits any other person to detain, delay, or destroy the same, or opens, or permits any other person to open, any mail or package of newspapers not directed to the office where he is employed; or Whoever, without authority, opens, or destroys any mail or package of newspapers not directed to him, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both. ---
**Author:** ![kaylasdad99](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kaylasdad99/32/3398_2.png) [@kaylasdad99](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kaylasdad99)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/30 "2010-11-01T02:12:53Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > I’ll give you the laws below, but to answer your last question, I don’t know what you could do, except to leave them in your mailbox until it gets full. I went through a pretty depressed period several years ago when I simply couldn’t be bothered to go out to the mailbox every day and empty it (this is an apartment complex, btw). When the box got too full to accommodate any more stuff, the letter carrier simply started bringing my household’s mail back to the substation. This was BEFORE I started working for the Postal Service, fwiw. ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/31 "2010-11-01T02:19:21Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > Not sure where you are, but in Australia and New Zealand that’s exactly what people do- put a “NO JUNK MAIL” sign on their letterbox, and hey presto, the junk mail stops. How do the mail carriers tell the difference? ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 2:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/32 "2010-11-01T02:26:40Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > How do the mail carriers tell the difference? “Junk Mail” in this part of the world refers to pamphlets, flyers, catalogues, etc. It’s delivered by independent contractors (often schoolkids, retired people, single parents, etc), not Australia Post (at least as far as I’m aware- there is a board member who knows more about it than I). ---
**Author:** ![Peremensoe](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ce7236/32.png) [@Peremensoe](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peremensoe)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 2:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/33 "2010-11-01T02:29:04Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > “Junk Mail” in this part of the world refers to pamphlets, flyers, catalogues, etc. It’s delivered by independent contractors (often schoolkids, retired people, single parents, etc), not Australia Post (at least as far as I’m aware- there is a board member who knows more about it than I). Ah. In the United States, people not employed by the United States Postal Service aren’t supposed to be delivering anything to any proper mailbox, ever. ---
**Author:** ![Obeseus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbce88/32.png) [@Obeseus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obeseus)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 3:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/34 "2010-11-01T03:12:48Z")
Sometimes, just asking your mail carrier or the postmaster to stop giving you the junk does the trick. You may be told they must deliver. Some are ok with not delivering the junk mail. Others will stop delivery only on those things without an address (where they have a stack of flyers in which they stuff one in each box.) Some carriers are very happy to be able to count out how many flyers they need before heading out on the route and discard a pile before leaving the PO. The items without an address are easily passed off as extras and discarded to be recycled. A carrier could be called on it if he has throwaway/recycling that has valid addresses, even if that address is “Current Occupant, 2 Main St.” You will have better luck with smaller post offices. You must remember, though, if you ask your neighbor how he got that great buy on his new lawnmower, and he says he got a junk flyer in the mail, you can’t complain to the PO that you didn’t get the same flyer. ---
**Author:** ![Obeseus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/bbce88/32.png) [@Obeseus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Obeseus)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 3:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/35 "2010-11-01T03:15:24Z")
> [@spark240](#): > > Ah. In the United States, people not employed by the United States Postal Service aren’t supposed to be delivering anything to any proper mailbox, ever. The USPS has many, many independant contractors. They use their own vehicles and do not get benefits. Expect to see the # of ICs grow as the USPS downsizes their # of employees. ---
**Author:** ![Martini\_Enfield](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/martini_enfield/32/11123_2.png) [@Martini\_Enfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Martini_Enfield)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 5:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/36 "2010-11-01T05:16:23Z")
> [@Obeseus](#): > > The USPS has many, many independant contractors. They use their own vehicles and do not get benefits. Expect to see the # of ICs grow as the USPS downsizes their # of employees. When I said “Independent Contractors”, I mean “People not affiliated with Australia Post In Any Way, Shape, Or Form”- they work instead for circular delivery companies, the local newspaper, and so on. ---
**Author:** ![Dumbguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/2bfe46/32.png) [@Dumbguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dumbguy)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 9:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/37 "2010-11-01T09:27:00Z")
At one point I lived in one of those huge apartment complexes with over a hundred units. They property management left a few big industrial bins near the post boxes so people could dump their junk mail without taking back to their apartment. It was amazing how quickly the stuff would amass. These huge bins would have to be emptied almost every day or the mail would be flowing out onto the sidewalk. It struck me one day what a monumental undertaking all this junk mail must be nationwide. Thousands of people across the country designing and writing and doing layouts and printing these flyers, thousands more bundling them and loading them in trucks, computer programs running addresses through databases and batch labeling them by the millions, mail workers processing and sorting them, mail carriers driving them to every corner of the country day after day and hand delivering them to the proper recipients just so people can glance at them and put them in the trash. I assume it must be worth it to the businesses, or they’d stop doing it, but I’d suggest we just make them send these things by Fedex or DHL or UPS instead of USPS so they have to decide if it’s really worth the cost/benefit analysis without the advantage of making us pay part of the shipping costs for them. ---
**Author:** ![BleizDu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/9dc877/32.png) [@BleizDu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BleizDu)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 10:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/38 "2010-11-01T10:15:33Z")
> [@Martini\_Enfield](#): > > “Junk Mail” in this part of the world refers to pamphlets, flyers, catalogues, etc. It’s delivered by independent contractors (often schoolkids, retired people, single parents, etc), not Australia Post (at least as far as I’m aware- there is a board member who knows more about it than I). Same in France too. We live in a remote area and the only junk mail we get is delivered by the postman though (supermarkets offers/catalogues), if he sees us around he’ll ask if we want it. I’m too lazy to put up a no junk mail sign on our letterbox so I just throw it in the wood stove (it burns badly though, really not good, and useless to start off a fire). ---
**Author:** ![Ludovic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/7ab992/32.png) [@Ludovic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ludovic)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 12:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/39 "2010-11-01T12:39:37Z")
> [@Dumbguy](#): > > I assume it must be worth it to the businesses, or they’d stop doing it, but I’d suggest we just make them send these things by Fedex or DHL or UPS instead of USPS so they have to decide if it’s really worth the cost/benefit analysis without the advantage of making us pay part of the shipping costs for them. I think USPS may lose more money _without_ the junk mailers. They’d still have to maintain around the same number of post offices and mailboxes, and still run the same residential routes, albeit with a reduced volume of mail. So you’d also have the same exact distance travelled every day by the postal workers in their daily routes. All that would add up to an _increased_ overhead per delivered item if you don’t include junk mail (since it’s a fixed cost divided by a reduced number of items.) That said, I’d pay more money per letter I send if it meant I got a reduced amount of junk mail. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2010, 9:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936/40 "2010-11-01T21:03:38Z")
Remember that the USPS isn’t the sender of the mail, they are just the deliverer. Asking them to weed through your mail would be like asking the phone company to decide which phone calls to send to your telephone. We don’t need a way to the USPS to not deliver the mail, we need some way to prevent the senders from mailing it in the first place. My preference? Raise the cost of bulk mail. Make it just as expensive to send a flyer for the local car dealership as it is to send a birthday card. With automatic mail sorters now, it’s not like the postal service is saving THAT much money by having the junk mail presorted, rather than having to hand sort it. It’s just less machine sorting time. Stop giving them a break, and make it all one first-class delivery rate. Either the junk mail is going to slow, or the USPS will be well funded. I can live with either one of those options. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-do-i-have-to-accept-junk-mail/558936.md?page=3)