How to keep junk mail out of your mailbox
Post Reports
The Washington Post
4.4 • 5.1K Ratings
🗓️ 7 December 2023
⏱️ 16 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Americans are inundated with junk mail in their physical mailboxes. Climate coach Michael Coren tried to manage the flood – and his techniques actually worked.
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The typical American gets about 41 pounds of junk mail every year delivered to their door. And for some, it’s even worse during the holiday season, as catalogs and coupon booklets come flooding in.
The Post’s climate coach Michael Coren looked at this junk mail as a challenge and started asking: How do I get it all to stop? Today, Coren explains the origins of the snail mail you never wanted – and he shares tips on how he succeeded in stopping it in its tracks.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hey Post Reports listeners. |
| 0:06.4 | Here in Washington, D.C. at least, it's getting colder and darker and we're working on an episode about how to avoid the winter blues. |
| 0:14.7 | If you have a strategy to share please send us a voice memo to post reports at |
| 0:19.4 | washpost.com. We appreciate the ones we've gotten already and we can't wait to get more. |
| 0:24.0 | Include your name and where you're calling from and you might hear yourself on the show. |
| 0:28.0 | Okay, now on to today's episode. So, Michael, lately my mailbox has been overflowing with junk mail and we are approaching |
| 0:45.0 | holiday season so all of those glossy catalogs are out in full force and I'm wondering |
| 0:49.6 | what do you see in your mail these days? |
| 0:52.4 | So I feel like I've seen everything. |
| 0:53.9 | I get credit card offers from Chase Southwest, American Express, |
| 0:58.3 | I get grocery coupons from stores I've never heard of. |
| 1:02.2 | Definitely catalogs for furniture that I'll never buy. |
| 1:05.2 | A plea to go on a princess cruise, 30% off I buy direct contact lenses, |
| 1:11.2 | select home warranties, and something from the barbecue guys that I'm still trying to figure out. |
| 1:15.4 | That's my colleague Abba Baderai talking with climate coach Michael Corin. |
| 1:24.6 | I am the climate advice columnist for the Washington Post, otherwise known as the climate |
| 1:29.5 | coach. |
| 1:30.6 | And like a lot of Americans, he's been dealing with what I think is a pretty universally annoying phenomenon. |
| 1:37.0 | Junk mail, tons of it piling up in people's physical mailboxes. |
| 1:42.0 | So I've been getting mountains of mail over the course of up in people's physical mailboxes. |
| 1:42.6 | So I've been getting mountains of mail over the course of years, sometimes more, sometimes |
| 1:46.6 | sometimes less, but it's a pretty steady stream, you know, pieces every day, every few days, and its credit card offers and coupons and catalogs I never asked |
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