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Auckland junk mail ban proposed

11:00 Thu Sep 20 2012

MSN NZ

The council plans to ban unwanted and unaddressed mail such as advertising material, clothing donation bags, circulars, leaflets, brochures and flyers (Thinkstock)

More national news

Junk mail may become a thing of the past if a proposed littering bylaw is adopted by Auckland Council.

The council plans to ban unwanted and unaddressed mail such as advertising material, clothing donation bags, circulars, leaflets, brochures and flyers because it adds to the community litter problem, a spokesperson told media.

A council committee yesterday heard concerns from North Shore groups on the proposed littering bylaw.

The proposal states that no one, except official agencies, can post unaddressed mail to letterboxes marked "no circulars" or "no junk mail."

But voluntary community groups fear it will prevent them handing out their material, the New Zealand Herald reported.

Campbells Bay Community Association chairman Max Thomson asked the committee to broaden any new bylaw to exempt community organisation newsletters and notices.

The planned bylaw was also criticised by the Marketing Association. Spokesman Keith Norris said distributing ‘junk mail’ employs 9000 New Zealanders and revenue exceeds $80 million a year.

"Our preference is for no bylaw and council leaving it to the national code of practice," said Mr Norris.

Do you think junk mail should be banned? Have your say below

User comments

As said, just have a no junk mail, no circular or addressed mail only sign. The deliverers will not deliver to you anymore. My daughter does this as her pocket money job as I cant afford to give her any. She does it correctly and no complaints. If you have issues take it up with the delivery supervisor, but dont encourage children not to earn their spending money and the start of their work ethics or people who earn the extra $100 per month who have a disability being able to earn it. Get a grip and be sensible, blanket bans dont work.

But i have a no junk mail sign on my letterbox because I got tired of cleaning out the letterbox and cleaning up the rubbish blowing all over my road frontage. Retailers can still get brochures in our letterboxes. But they would have to insert them in local papers etc rather than just having a free for all. I would support the bylaw.

Brilliant idea. Can it be spread to other councils around the country. Why should we be forced to pay to dispose dispose of large companies crap advertising. There's more than enough of it on TV. If I want something I have the intelligence to find it, I don't need to be brainwashed into looking at something I might need. If they can afford to waste such large sums of money, bring the bloody prices down instead and people will find their own way into their stores.

Isn't that what letter boxes are for? If you do not like Junk mail you do not have to read it! Has the world gone mad? The council needs to get a life... maybe we should ban them!

That's a great idea! Most of it gets thrown out anyway. To the commenter who said, "If you dont want Junk mail put a sign on your letter box", I have one and people put things in there regardless of the sign.

Junk mail really doesn't worry me. Purhaps if the moaners just took a step back and really worried about more important stuff then we would all be better off. Delivering junk mail gives our retired comunity the oppertunity to earn a little extra money as well as exercise, good on them. you dont see many school age kids delivering any more so those that do good on you too. At least while earning you arn't out robbing people or worse robbing those that are complaining. This is NZ, Get a life moaners and smell the roses.

Good start to cleaning up our environment. If everybody who reads this googles any environment web site and takes a good look at the state of the world, they will understand that something needs to be done. New Zealand is a good place to start. Make this a positive imagine what a difference we can all make if we join together to make Aotearoa the clean green land that once was. Perhaps the delivery people can be paid for picking up rubbish instead to keep them employed. Well done Auckland!!!

I have no problem with junk mail. That is why we have a letter box!

so 100's are being employed to rubbish our letterboxes and streets-what a ridiculous argument for keeping something? Lets not ban burglaries either or other crimes as that 'employs' 100's too. Why should we have to pay up a no junk mail sign when we don't want it in the first place. Junk mail is a blight on our lives-there's enough advertising on the other media without rubbishing our homes. Ban it!

Hello, some people enjoy reading advertising material? Clearly this is a common thing...if no-one read it, it would be an ineffective advertising medium and would stop being used. If you don't want it, put up a No Circulars sign. If this doesn't stop them, then the sensible (rather than moronically heavy-handed) Government approach would be to enforce citizens' rights to decline advertising material by punishing the companies that ignore those signs on the letterbox. Admittedly and unfortunately, such signs don't stop the flow of local papers and property newsletters, which are the true "junk" mail.