Before I went to Thailand in November, I arranged to have our mail held (a saga by itself: in what way is three full business days
from a Monday morning a Friday morning?) and intended to get a ‘no junk mail’ sign for our mail box (these work quite well at stopping non-addressed mail in Australia, although I think the code is voluntary). However I couldn’t find them in KMart and ran out of time for shopping around. Supposedly it’s hard to get them because everywhere that you’d think to buy them relies heavily on junk mail to advertise.
I looked around online when I got back but while one can find a lot of places talking about them, it’s hard to find someone who sells them.
Eventually though, I tracked down this: a free ‘No Advertising Material’ sticker from the Distribution Standards Board (Australia). Well, actually it costs $1 (two stamps) plus the unit price of two envelopes, because you send them a stamped, self-addressed envelope and they send back the sticker and a leaflet that tells you about the sticker. (The universal No Advertising Material (N.A.M.) sign is designed to replace the dozens of different and confusing signs now in use…
etc etc. Apparently I still get free newspapers, political material and a few other things. And a hotline )
I’ve been in the habit of always having a big pack of envelopes at home and stamps in my wallet for several years now (I used to have to lodge a statement of my income once a fortnight in order to get my government student allowance). It’s surprising how useful it still is to do that. Well, not that useful. But somewhat useful.