No junk mail for anyone?

So while I was carrying out my daily dump-the-junk-mail routine I considered for the umpteenth time buying a ‘No Junk Mail’ sticker for the mailbox.

Then I wondered: what would happen if ‘No Junk Mail’ stickers were delivered with the junk mail? What would happen if they were mailed out en masse to every home in Sydney?

It struck me that such a stunt could be very disruptive.

Assuming a majority of people apply the sticker, it could drive the companies that are responsible for distributing the material out of business. It would mean more teenagers hunting employment at the local department store. And they wouldn’t be able to employ them due to the drop in income from a smaller distribution of their catalogs.

The upside to this is that families would be less inclined to buy things that don’t actually need, but all this would probably result in an increase in prices as retailers try and make ends meet.

The only real winner in the end would probably be the environment.

Just in case you’re considering doing this, I would recommend testing the assumption I made above. Start by testing a whole street, and then maybe a whole suburb. Even try a few different demographics.

Buy a stack of stickers. Go from house to house, putting one into each letterbox which doesn’t already have one. Wait a week. Go around and count the number of them actually stuck up. If a decent percentage have put them up, then it’ll probably work.