We’ll need Noah and his Ark to escape the new flood of junk mail

I recently returned home from a fortnight’s holiday only to fight to get my front door open. Not because the emptied bins had been left on the doorstep yet again, or because I’d left a key in the lock. No. Instead, a sea of junk mail had flooded my hall, jamming the door as I tried to get in.

The worst offenders were local take-aways and restaurants. I counted eight Domino’s pizza menus alone, which given how long I was away means the chain must be clocking up flyer drops at a rate of at least one every two days. These were accompanied by countless broadband, TV, phone, clothing and homeware mail-outs promoting deals of some kind or other.

Despite the figures the desperate paper-based direct mail industry puts out claiming most households are happy to receive useful marketing information and that they really do ‘engage’ with the companies that spam them, I never bother to read any of it.