Don't call it "Junk Mail"

Submitted by Amanda Fritz on August 30, 2007 - 11:50am.

My friend Alesia J. Reese, proud employee of the United States Postal Service, gently chides me not to use the term "junk mail". She points out that the mail is not 'junk' to the thousands of advertisers, businesses and non-profit organizations who use its services. And mail is not 'junk' to millions of Americans who connect daily (6 days a week, 52 weeks a year) with the letter carrier who delivers this information - sometimes, the only face many residents see at their home.

Facts I didn't know:


* Most Post Offices provide recycling receptacles, and the Post Office is a premiere recycling agency.


* Bulk mail containing returned nonperishable food products, especially baby formula, is processed (personal information removed) and forwarded to the Oregon Food Bank. Portland's Main Office is one of the few Post Offices in the country to do so.

So what should we call the mail formerly known as junk? Alesia says the Post Office refers to mail in several ways:


* Non-Profit Mail - Churches, schools, environmental, religious groups, etc.;


* Bulk Business Mail - Some catalogs, coupons and promotions;


* Standard Mail - Other catalogs, flyers and samples like detergent, razors, and diapers.

Thank you for the information, Reese. I shall strive to remember.

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But for another perspective,

Submitted by Michael5000 on August 30, 2007 - 12:44pm.
But for another perspective, if I may: Roughly 2/3 of the mail delivered to my own not-untypical home is unsolicited, unwanted, advertising material. Because such stuff is typically thrown into the trash unopened, it is popularly -- and accurately -- called "junk mail." The post office, unneccessarily cut off from public funding, is forced to encourage junk mail by giving enormous discounts to bulk senders. Though this is hardly the worst ecological problem facing the country, it does create a significant waste of paper resources and landfill space. Among the slings and arrows of modern life, furthermore, the constant presence of trash in the mailbox is only a minimal nuisance -- but it IS a nuisance. michael5000.blogspot.com
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Amanda, your friend is

Submitted by Hayden on August 30, 2007 - 2:21pm.
Amanda, your friend is wrong: the vast majority of what the US Post Office deals in is indeed "junk mail," and her attempts to get us to call it other than what it is will not succeed. She is employed to, essentially, send advertisements from one entity to another, a dying trade that has little social value. She should seek more useful employment instead of engaging in futile attempts to get us to shift already-precise vocabulary.
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I disagree, Hayden - just as

Submitted by Amanda Fritz on August 30, 2007 - 3:34pm.
I disagree, Hayden - just as you disagree with Alesia, rather than being able to prove she is "wrong". I consider Postal Service employees extremely useful. And I think "bulk mail" is in fact more precise than "junk". As a dedicated thrift store shopper who at the same time is baffled by garage sales, I know that people have different views of what constitutes "junk". And hey, she's succeeded in getting me to change my wording. Has anyone tried the "Mail Preference" sign-up, which allegedly reduces bulk mail deliveries? If so and it works, please post or e-mail me with how to sign up, for those who'd prefer fewer unsolicited deliveries. I signed up with the Capitol One service (or rather, to end their solicitations) a few months ago and have seen a marked reduction in their mailings. I don't have the address now, but it was thoughtfully and visibly sited on one of their offers so I thought it couldn't hurt to give it a try. Lo and behold, it seems to work.
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Bull hockey--- it's

Submitted by George Seldes on August 30, 2007 - 5:59pm.
Bull hockey--- it's gambling, not "gaming;" it's sludge, not "biosolids;" it's a whorehouse, not a "gentlemen's club," and it's junk mail to me --- and I work hard to get as little as possible. I am on every "Do not mail" list there is, I don't give out my address easily or casually, and I still get mail from Comcast weekly -- though they carefully have stopped using business reply envelopes because they didn't like paying to have all their junk shipped back to them, which is what I do whenever someone sends me junk mail with a BRE. I FINALLY stopped getting the damn "shop wise" weekly junk mail infusion (pizza coupons, etc.) by contacting the company in Portland and making them stop sending me the address card--then it only took a couple of years before the carriers stopped giving it to me ANYWAY, even without the address card. In other words, they were delivering the junk without even making the company pay postage on it--so it went from forest to printer to post office to my mailbox directly into the junk mail recycling bin, and the post office didn't get their cut. Not a good use of any of those resources or energy. It's no disparagement to the proud letter carriers to say that I do not want junk mail.
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