Wed, 16 Sep 2009 6:59p.m.
While you might throw unsolicited mail straight into the recycling, there are others who actually enjoy poring over each glossy page.
But a recent survey showed that as many as 80 percent of people who have 'no junkmail' stickers on their letterboxes still get it, and that's enough to drive some people postal.
"I think it's useless," says Jessica Johnston. "There's no point in it - nobody really reads it anyway, it just goes straight in the bin."
"I don't like the junkmail because it's just all this paper that I'm not interested in," says Bruce Black.
"Usually bin it," says Jo Green. "Sometimes I get the bargains, but not very often."
Leo Russo of Christchurch knows which side of the junkmail fence he sits on.
"I hate junkmail more than the Springboks, traffic cops and Brussels sprouts.
Despite having no less than three 'no junkmail' signs on his letterbox, his cup still runneth over.
"I went away for two weeks and when I came back my mail box was stuffed full of junkmail," he says. "I mean, I may as well have a big sign up outside my house saying, 'come on, burgle me man, there's no one here - there hasn't been for a few weeks, you know'."
Sometimes his box is so full that bills don't reach him.
"I've found my bills blowing up my driveway, down the street. The post office has got them back saying they're undeliverable. I mean, I don't mind - if the junkmail company wants to pay my phone bill they can do it - but other than that I'd really like to receive it, thankyou."
"If we can't deliver the mail then we have to take it back to branch," says postie Karen Blee.
For Ms Blee, junkmail isn't just annoying - it's dangerous.
"It becomes a safety issue because you go to put it in the mail and it just stops you dead and it can throw you off your bike."
Luckily there's help for people like Mr Russo. IT consultant Andrew Horton started a campaign – Letterboxer - two years ago for environmental reasons.
"The same paper can only be recycled five-to-seven times before it becomes a kind of useless sludge, and even though a lot of paper will come from a sustainable pine plantation, planting pine also makes the soil so acidic that it becomes very difficult for anything else to grow there," he says.
He supplies 'no junkmail' stickers to Canterbury residents, and Letterboxer is also running a design competition to create a nationwide sticker.
But what if - like in Mr Russo's case - the sticker is ignored?
Mr Horton says mostly stickers work, but tell that to Mr Russo.
"We need a bylaw," he says. "We need a bylaw that says if you've got 'addressed mail only' written on your mailbox than only the postie can touch the mailbox."
"Obviously the householder doesn't want junkmail, so don't deliver it," says Ms Blee.
Christchurch, Wellington and Dunedin councils don't have bylaws, but Auckland City Council does. Under it, you can be fined for posting unsolicited mail in a letter box clearly marked 'no circulars', but the bylaw has never actually been used to prosecute anyone.
The council says it is difficult to get evidence that the bylaw has been breached, and then who do you prosecute - the 12-year-old delivery girl?
The Marketing Association thinks the bylaw is ineffectual. Distributers are simply supposed to follow a code of conduct which says 'respect the sticker'.
But could the problem lie in the use of financial incentives?
"Some of the staff get paid per letterbox they put the junkmail into, and that encourages them to put them in letterboxes with no junkmail stickers," says Mr Horton.
The Marketing Association has a helpline you can ring if you want junkmail delivery stopped, but Mr Russo says it's simple, stupid.
"A lot of people love junkmail, but if you have something labelled on your mailbox saying you don't want to receive junkmail, then they shouldn't give it to you."
If you want your junkmail stopped, the Marketing Association helpline number is 0800 111 081.