All right, at the outset I will confess that as an online publisher I might stand to benefit personally if those pesky free newspapers were banned BUT the fact is there is an environmentally inspired movement taking hold around the world whose single goal is to stamp out this archaic practice once and for all and finally get rid of those unwanted bundles of newsprint thrown on to our lawns each week.
To make matters worse it seems to me the people who actually deliver the free newspapers (sometimes in plastic sometimes not) never ever read the ‘No Junk Mail’ stickers on letter boxes since religiously each week a new bundle is directed in the general direction of every letter box I see in the suburbs.
What really annoys me is that the ‘No Junk Mail’ letterbox owners steadfastly refuse to remove the unwanted papers … and why should they … and muggins ends up having to tidy up the whole area on a weekly basis.
And, in the CBD it’s worse. The lobby of some buildings seem to collect a dozen or more unwanted ‘visitors’ at a time – which might boost circulation figures for the publisher but always makes me wonder “Do they ever actually make their way up to the business offices in the upper floors?”
Now the hard headed marketers out there will quickly tell you that a 3 per cent response rate for unaddressed junk/direct mail is a good result, but I say to them “who has to pick up the unwanted 97 per cent time after time?”
I’m sure as hell it shouldn’t be us! If anything the publisher should be sent the bill to tidy up.
Admittedly there are some people who might claim e-magazines such as ours would also fall into the same category but consider this:
1) You must have subscribed (asked for) at sometime to actually receive a copy
2) If you want to unsubscribe you should be able to. It’s a legal requirement and if the automated process doesn’t function correctly (and I know we have our moments) you can always ring a human at our office and discuss the issue
3) We don’t cut down any trees
4) We don’t litter the local landscape – 50 times a year – one community newspaper I know distributes well over 5,000,000 un-asked for copies each year
5) You can always delete our publication from your Inbox– with a single click.
6) You don’t have to physically pick it up (and heaven forbid if they’ve been rained on newspapers become ink stained globs) and dispose in the recycle bin
It seems to me if people really want a newspaper they should buy one – it makes no sense in the 21st century that so-called environmentally friendly councils and enlightened ratepayers should allow this out-moded and wasteful practice to continue.
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