Dialogue: Get your garbage out of my mailbox

By ELIZABETH EASTHER

I know it's been said before but, at the risk of covering already well-trodden ground, I'll say it, too: whoever's in charge of the junk mail that's stuffing my letter-box, please give it a rest.

Weekly the equivalent of a strapping weekend newspaper is jammed into my letter-box.

Around the neighbourhood I see on letter-boxes notices proclaiming "No Junk Mail" but they are ignored. The deliverers have been indoctrinated to believe they are dropping off precious circulars. They can call them what they like - it's all recycling to me.

Circulars, direct mailers or trash that folds - whatever you want to call it, it's beginning to overwhelm me. I worry for the planet enough without having to feel responsible for the felling of whole forests every time I collect the mail.

The other day I asked a small boy who was delivering in my street not to bother with me. I said it in a cheery and reasonable manner, but he didn't listen. So I tried barking at him, like a dog, thinking he was small enough to be scared of a crazy lady, but he didn't even flinch and gave me a double dose of paper for my trouble.

When I was living up north a while back, I had to return to Auckland for a few weeks so attempted to strike a deal with my rural deliverer.

"Bruce," I said to him, for that was his name, "Bruce, I'm going away for a while, but I don't want my mail stopped, just the extraneous stuff that advertises little more than my absence."

Much to my surprise, Bruce told me that he was contracted by Adpost to insert the stuff and didn't think he couldn't. What horror I experienced when I realised that Bruce was in on the whole thing; I'd thought we were on the same side. We'd often had ecologically sound chats as he did his rounds in the bay.

Fortunately, we came to an arrangement but I always felt a bit suspicious of him after that.

My personal protest against the filth is that I make a point of not shopping at the establishments whose marketing material clutters my mailbox - admittedly a small revenge, but it makes me feel better.

I have asked my bank not to send me offers for wine clubs with my credit-card bill, but still I am regularly encouraged to join up and get started on my cellar.

It's getting more insidious too. My aunt's dentist wrote to her recently that it was a pleasure caring for her teeth, then he made an offer - a $50 discount if she introduced three new patients. That just seems wrong.

Are we really powerless to rise up against the senders of all this rubbish and their inducements to buy, buy, buy? I have wondered about a wordier, I hope punchier, sign that could be stuck to mailboxes.

This could be a message explaining that should anyone fill this letter-box with printed matter that is not addressed specifically to the householder by name, legal action will be taken. But I don't know if it would stand up in court.

And even if I did take legal action against printed adverts, I'm still no match for the advertising pollution that has made television almost unwatchable. Some TV commercials make me cringe, they're so cheap and nasty.

And to think I used to want to work in advertising. "The most fun you can have with your clothes on" was the first thing I heard when doing a short course on the subject last year. The nine weeks we would spend at the school would change the paths of our lives forever. Bring it on, I thought, bring it on.

We were expected to eat, sleep and breathe advertising. I turned off my phone, cancelled all my commitments - I was going on an ad-venture.

But then my morals reared their ugly heads. What came to upset me most about advertising was that it made people want things they didn't need or, even worse, couldn't afford. With an attitude like that, it didn't take long to realise I wasn't cut out for the business.

I read on the side of a large emporium recently the words, "Making the desirable affordable." But, you know, I think they had it the wrong way round because advertising is more about making the affordable desirable.

I'm mostly glad I never made it into advertising-land. If I had, I wouldn't be able to complain about the ads.