If you want a lesson in how pointless it is expecting the government (any government) to take on board anything not backed by big business or a huge popular campaign write to your MP.

The problem with any levy on fliers is how the hell do you enforce it? My rant about the Pizza flyers was only partially true - I also get the damned thing for chippies, curry houses, and umpteen ethnic speciality outlets - I'd say the average is close to one a day. They all come from tint outlets and are printed by tiny print shops so how do you collect the levy?

In reply to a post by kwikbreaks:

If you want a lesson in how pointless it is expecting the government (any government) to take on board anything not backed by big business or a huge popular campaign write to your MP.

The problem with any levy on fliers is how the hell do you enforce it? My rant about the Pizza flyers was only partially true - I also get the damned thing for chippies, curry houses, and umpteen ethnic speciality outlets - I'd say the average is close to one a day. They all come from tint outlets and are printed by tiny print shops so how do you collect the levy?

assuming they use royal mail my ideas would be.

1 - have royal mail enforce a quota limit, eg. one flyer per year. if company tries to send 2nd flyer then royal mail themselves deny the service, Obviously this could be worked around by using another company to deliver or even deliver themselves.
2 - work on the basis people can report excessive flyers to an authority who then imposes a fine, if fine not paid within 30days the company trading rights are suspended. For repeat offense repeat the fine by 10x nultiple each time as a detterent.
3 - your levy idea, I think the only possible way to enforce this is have any delivery companies ie. royal mail to apply this on any charges they charge the business and then royal mail pass the levy on. This levy would need to be quite high to be an effective detterent.

no chance from this government tho as they very pro business. Also I think unlikely from a labour government, only someone like the green party would probably do anything about it.

In reply to a post by undecidedadrian:

Not just with the paper being made but the inks used have a large amount of heavy metals in them and a printing works will discharge a lot of waste ink and the heavy metals all go into the sewers and given how often VM mail me it turns into a small enviromental disater.

You demonstrably have the same level of knowledge of the print and paper industries as the 'experts' that stopped importation of eucalyptus pulp from South America.

Wasting the most expensive ingredient (ink) in printed material is a pretty daft thing to do - just think of it?

Heavy Metals????? a tiny factor compared with the chemicals discharged when making 'vegan' plastic shoes.

I am a retired printer and was, like most printers, re-cycling before it became fashionable.

Just in case you are interested the planting of eucalyptus was encouraged by paper and celophane manufacturers to help prevent soil erosion and also to give subsistence farmers a cash crop to alleviate their poverty.

It amazes me that people with good arguments, that I agree with, bring everything they say into question by ill researched cheap shots with 'everybody knows' fabrications.

If you really think that printers discharge into sewers you are using data from the 50s and 60s. The fines in the UK for such CRIMES are quite high.....

Unfortunately you do not understand how the water industry works and how the trade effulent system works.

It is not a crime to discharge these materials into a sewer but you will have to pay for the privaledge for it and strict monitoring of what is going into the sewer and being charged according to the effluent.

I have seen samples of inks taken from the sewers, as well as many plating works and any other number of industries discharging straight into the sewers.

And when you have seen coloured sewer samples with miligrams per litre of cadnium etc in it, it shows how wasteful our society is.

In reply to a post by Chrysalis:

assuming they use royal mail my ideas would be.

They are hand delivered. I suppose I could set a bear trap but then I wouldn't get my eBay tat delivered

In reply to a post by pete_thomson:

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

The only way to stop The Occupier paper spam is to apply to Royal Mail to stop all un-named mail.

Rather annoyingly, RM see mail with "The Occupier" on it as named mail.

I'd be tempted to return it as "no-one of this name lives here"

Do what I do send them back marked:
No Theo C Cupier here! - that stops the beggers.

In reply to a post by undecidedadrian:

Unfortunately you do not understand how the water industry works and how the trade effulent system works.
And when you have seen coloured sewer samples with miligrams per litre of cadnium etc in it, it shows how wasteful our society is.

Please don't undermine an argument against waste, which I wholy agree with by making statements that are unconnected and alienating one of your few supporters....... ME.

I do understand how the print industry works, having been involved in it for most of my life and being the fourth generation of my family to have such involvement.

The waste generated by Virgin with their leaflets, flyers and mailshots is annoying. It is wasteful and damages the planet. With that I agree totally.

Can you try to see the real problem? It may be far too straight forward and non-conspiracy theory for your taste, BUT, Virgin makes a profit from their advertising by getting new customers or they wouldn't advertise in this way.

To stop the waste, it has to be made non-profitable for Virgin to generate all those damn leaflets, most of which aren't even compostable and are difficult to recycle due to the use of glossy stock and full colour litho.

If you for one second realise that you are never in a million years going to get Virgin to stop trying to sell their product to you, you may realise that some alternative has to be found that is acceptable to Virgin.

Your time would be better spent working on the problem of advertising in a Capitalist society rather than quoting data about an industry of which you know nothing.

Before reading your posts I had doubts about the waste caused by plating - having seen this put forward by someone who spouts misinformation about print, I will reserve my opinion until I see confirmable data.

Please realise that you do more damage to the cause for more re-use and re-cycling than the worst lobbyist for 'Polution Incorporated'.

I had the same problem with virgin sent the letter informing them that I would be charging them £15 ponds. They stopped.

I have also done it with other companies once took one to court wich settled outside of the small claims as soon as they got the paper work.


Quite funny infact they said they could not beleive i had sent them court paper over afew pieces of paper, I pointe dout I was not i was talking them to court over an unpaid bill.

In reply to a post by Cobra001:

I had the same problem with virgin sent the letter informing them that I would be charging them £15 ponds. They stopped.

I have also done it with other companies once took one to court wich settled outside of the small claims as soon as they got the paper work.


Quite funny infact they said they could not beleive i had sent them court paper over afew pieces of paper, I pointe dout I was not i was talking them to court over an unpaid bill.

yeah that tactic is effective, friend of mine did the same as well.

In reply to a post by Malwaremike:

..................
Even named junk can be hard to stop. Direct Holidays bombarded us with thick brochures etc for two years despite many requests. Eventually I kept the covers with dates, copied them recorded delivery to the Company Secretary and advised there would be a £25 disposal charge for each item delivered after that date, and by sending such items they would be deemed to agree to such charge.

A very nice legal person wrote back to say they did not think the courts would agree to such a charge, and I replied to say we would certainly find out. This did the trick (it turned out that they had us listed twice, one with mis-spelling) but what a lot of hassle and ill will to the company concerned.

As I wrote on Feb 20. Lots of hassle I'm afraid, but if we all took this line we could stop this torrent of wasteful garbage.