Article: Mountains out of mail hills Last year,12 billion items of junk mail were shoved through Britain's letterboxes. If that wasn't bad enough, Royal Mail has just lifted all limits, so now the pile mounting on doorsteps across the country will grow ever higher. But, as Ross Clark reports, a consumer backlash has begun

For residents of Churchfields, in Barry, south Wales, it appeared to be just one more of the many items of junk mail which land daily on their doormats. On closer inspection, however, it turned out to be a photocopied sheet from their postman, Roger Annies, with some friendly advice on how to halt the flow of blank, unaddressed bulk mail: by writing to a little-known Royal Mail service called ''Door to Door Opt-Outs''.

At Royal Mail's Oxford offices, which handle the opt-out service, the sudden arrival of 70 completed forms from Barry caused puzzlement - until an investigation uncovered the existence of Mr Annies's leaflet. He was swiftly suspended, but, if by doing so, the Royal Mail had ...

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