Junk mail in Canada and in the U.S.

In Canada, Canada Post offers as a paid service to distribute junk mail. This is called "Unaddressed Admail". Direct marketers deliver their stuff to the Post Office for some neighborhoods and they are distributed to every household in these neighborhoods.

If you don't want to get this unaddressed or junk mail, you simply have to put a sign "No junk mail" on your mailbox. Canada Post then decrements the number of mail boxes where junk mail is distributed in your neighborhood and the direct marketers then reduce the size of the junk mail to be distributed. This way, less paper is wasted.

In the week after we arrived in Miami, I met my letter carrier and I asked him what I should do so that I don't receive the junk mail. I told him about the "no junk mail" sign in Canada. He indicated to me that if he were not distributing what I call "junk mail", he would not do his job.

Later, I discover that each piece of junk mail is individually addressed to each household with the full address, including the apartment number. No name of course, just "Resident" or "Our neighbor". I then understood that indeed the letter carrier had to distribute the junk mail to everybody, as it is individually addressed. Of course, like most people that would like to not receive junk mail, I put it directly in one of the large garbage cans around the mailboxes in our apartment complex.

I find the Canadian system much better, mostly because it reduces waste.