UTMC

I like taking the week's junk mail, putting it in a shoebox and sending it back with one of those postage paid envelopes taped on, but I wish there was something better. Go figure Canada came up with this:

http://www.reddotcampaign.ca/


Why the hell don't we have something like that in the US?

We've got something like that over here. If you put a sign (any kind of sign) on your mailbox indicating you don't want junk mail, the junk mail distributors are not allowed to put their darn dial-a-pizza menus and supermarket special offers in there anymore.
In an apartment building, they circumvent this by just dumping the appropriate number of menus/catalogs/whatevers on the floor or on top of the mailboxes. Technically, since they didn't put it in the slot, they didn't break no rule there.
Unfortunately, mail carriers MUST deliver whatever mail they take on to transport which is properly adressed, etc.
Which means that, even if they know it's junk mail, they must put it in the box.
The law says that only if you agreed to get their material may companies send you any junk mail, any you can always call them and opt out. As long as it is adressed to you personally. If it's only adressed to "Resident" or something, the courts decided you can't be personally annoyed by the junk mail, so there's no way to stop that from coming.

But if someone sends you junk mail and cannot prove you gave your okay (like by signing an entry form for a "free" sweepstakes with some fine print regarding your information being sold for advertising purposes) you can technically sue them for harassing you.

I'm careful who I give my data to, so the only personalized junkmail I get regularly is a plea for donations from Amnesty International every couple of months.

Unfortunately most of the junk I get comes with the local 'free' 'news'paper, which takes the form of a bit of newsprint wrapped around 10 pounds of flyers. This thing often approaches telephone book proportions in thickness, if anyone can remember those anachronisms, and it comes 3 times a week, with a supplemental 'Booster' coming once or twice more weekly. The Booster doesn't even pretend to carry news, it's ads wrapped around ads, they're not even trying anymore!
There's also all the shady mailbox stuffers and doorhandle cloggers who don't follow Canada Post rules.
I think if the advertisers carried the cost of recycling and disposing of all the waste they produced it would be a different picture. I can barely lift my blue box to the curb some days!