How I loathe junk mail.   Despite the fact that we regularly sign up to the  Mailing Preference Service, we still manage to get the odd one junk letter or two.  The types of service that seem to regularly evade the MPS scheme are companies flogging credit cards or insurance, and charity begging letters.   And because the former invariably contains a pre-completed application form, disposing of them requires time and a little bit of identity-theft angst.  And ignoring the second type brings on guilt.    But I was reminded of a way to deal with this nuisance last night when I was reading Bill Bryson’s ‘Notes from a small island’.  He wrote:

 Also, while I think of it, can I ask you to tear up your junk mail, particularly when that mail invites you to take on more debt, and return it to the sender in the post-paid envelope?  It would make a far more effective gesture if there were thousands of us doing it.

 
So, having done that or simply destroyed the raffle tickets and letter with a dramatic flourish, one is left with a moral dilemma.  Should one keep and use the free address labels, sent to you entirely without obligation by the charity?  Answers, please, on a postcard to the charity - recipient to pay postage, of course.