THE average Welsh household receives 453 pieces of unwanted mail annually, a third of which is discarded unopened.
It takes 17 trees and 7,000 gallons of water to produce a tonne of junk mail. It is estimated that 9 million trees were felled in 2012 to produce junk mail, production which required 16.5billion gallons of water, all representing a waste of our valuable natural resources.
Excessive nuisance junk mail can also be particularly distressing for many older and vulnerable people.
Welsh Conservatives have launched a consultation on measures to tackle unwanted junk mail to debate options to crack down on the annual waste of natural resources and bombarding of people’s letterboxes.
There are several schemes to opt out of some junk mail, but awareness is very low and we feel a public debate on junk mail could help address this growing problem.
We have a beautiful natural environment in Wales, but we don’t want to see junk mail littering our streets or sent to landfill.
Our consultation can be undertaken online and I urge local people to have their say: www.surveymonkey.com/s/ Junk_Mail
RUSSELL GEORGE AM
Welsh Conservative Shadow Minister for Natural Resources National Assembly for Wales Cardiff Bay
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