![]() The nonprofit Environmental Action Germany (DUH) calculated that 535,000 tons of CO2, 42 billion liters of water, 4.3 billion kilowatt hours of energy, and 1.6 million tons of wood are wasted by producing and shipping a whopping 28 billion advertisements every year in Germany alone. France has already drafted legislation, and in Germany, the newly elected government responded favorably to Sielmann’s petition to introduce the Dutch opt-in model. where consumers receive more than 100 billion pieces of junk mail every year, killing 2.6 million trees.Īmsterdam’s results are so impressive that other cities and countries want to follow its example. This impact speaks to how much could be saved in a huge country like the U.S. A mailbox sticker created by the group Last Advertisement that reads “No Ads Please” in German. As a result, Amsterdam is saving 6,000 tons of paper and 700 trash runs per year. (Those who do often say they value the coupons and special offers they find in the flyers.) Anyone who does not opt in and still receives unwanted mail can call the city, and the sender will be fined 500 euros (about US$560). Only 23 percent of Dutch households opt in. In order to receive junk mail, you need to put a “Ja-Ja”-sticker on your mailbox that declares that you want it. Instead of opting out of each individual mailer as you have to in the U.S., Holland reversed the system. To rectify this, in 2018, Amsterdam pioneered an opt- in system, and several other Dutch cities soon followed suit. “People shouldn’t have to go out of their way to not receive something they don’t want in the first place,” says Sebastian Sielmann, the initiator of the anti-junk mail German petition “ Last Advertisement. It’s a good start, but fewer than 27 percent of Germans use the opt-out sticker, even though, when asked, 83 percent of Germans say they don’t want to receive junk. Beyond that, many European countries, as well as Canada and Australia, have opt-out systems: A sticker on your mailbox signals to postal carriers that they are not allowed to deliver bulk mail. and Germany, are currently preparing legal drafts to limit or ban plastic wrapping for magazines. The essential question is this: Can consumers decide what ends up in their mailbox? The answer depends on where you live. “This shows that the publishers are simply lying when they say consumers want this,” she says. When British media picked up Neville’s petition and polled its readership, 80 percent of children opposed plastic gifts, and only 20 percent approved. Neville’s father is the local mailman in Fairbourne, their house is only 100 meters from the shore where she cleans up plastic trash almost daily, and Fairbourne is one of the first British villages that will be swamped by rising sea levels - scientists estimate that houses there will probably be underwater in 20 years, so the dangers of climate change are top of mind.īut one doesn’t need to live in a doomed village to be concerned about wasting resources. I just don’t want to receive all this unwanted plastic.” Skye Neville with the plastic toys she’s fighting against. “Of course, I could simply unsubscribe from the magazine,” Neville acknowledges, “but I love to read. Even the Welsh parliament took up her request and is now considering a ban on plastic wrappings and gifts. Waitrose, one of the U.K.’s largest supermarket chains, stopped carrying the magazine as a result. “I laid out various options, for instance, covering the magazine in a layer made from potato starch.” When the publisher tried to brush her off with the response that kids love free plastic toys, she started an online petition that garnered more than 65,000 signatures. Last winter, she decided to do something about it - she wrote a letter to the publisher of Horrible Histories. To send out plastic junk in this time and age is inexcusable.” “This magazine came double wrapped in plastic, and this one had free plastic toys like this ugly red frog. ![]() Skye Neville loves reading comic books, but the 11 year old furrows her brows when she holds up her favorite to the Zoom camera from her village in Wales. ![]()
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