Junk Mail & the Red Dot Campaign
01 Feb 2008
Throughout the day yesterday, the CBC was talking about a new initiative called the Red Dot Campaign. It is a campaign to raise awareness and to provide a way of dealing with the deluge of junk mail that arrives at our homes every day.
The Red Dot Campaign was initiated by Beth Ringdahl, a Vancouver local and president of the eco-friendly marketing firm EcoEco. The campaign encourages Canadians to let Canada Post know that they do not want to receive unaddressed mail. For me, I rarely ever read junk mail and would be happier if I didn't receive it, but I do understand why it exists and that Canada Post makes money from it—based on the amount of junk mail I get, I would say they are making quite a bit of money from it. However, it is such a wasteful method of advertising that I would love to see it disappear.
In an interview on Radio One, a spokesperson for Canada Post defended junk mail (obviously) but did add that a person could opt-out of junk mail through the Canada Post website. I don't doubt that you can do this, but I haven't figured out how. A search of 'junk mail' seems to return resources for business to send junk mail... I mean Unaddressed Admail™.
I will probably end up taking part in the campaign, but I do have some lingering questions: what happens to the junk mail that doesn't get delivered? I presume it gets recycled, but I don't know if that is actually the case. Also, does Canada Post keep tabs on the number of houses receiving junk mail and do they report this back to the advertisers so they no how many pieces to print? If not, does saying no to junk mail actually produce less waste?
