About Zero Junk Mail

Why does Zero Junk Mail exist?

Because you cannot unsubscribe from advertising delivered by your own government. Email has an unsubscribe link and phones have the Do Not Call Registry. Advertising the Postal Service delivers has no equivalent, and the numbers are the Postal Service's own:

• USPS delivered nearly 3 billion EDDM pieces in fiscal 2025, and households had no way to opt out of the program (USPS Postal Facts).
• Advertising was 52% of everything USPS delivered that year: 56.8 billion of 108.7 billion pieces (USPS FY2025 results).
• The average household received 393 pieces of advertising mail, and households threw away 39% of their advertising mail without reading it (USPS Household Mail Survey, FY2025).

Zero Junk Mail explains that program plainly, helps readers stop the junk mail they can, and gathers support for an opt-out for the rest.

What does Zero Junk Mail do?

• Explains EDDM, ECRWSS and other saturation mail in plain language: what EDDM is and what ECRWSS means.
• Shows why households can't opt out, and the one exception advertisers control: how to stop EDDM mail one sender at a time.
• Walks through the free and low-cost opt-outs that work on addressed junk mail, in the stop junk mail guide.
• Traces what advertising mail costs in paper and waste, each figure to its source, on the environmental impact page.
• Keeps a dated archive of junk mail news and policy back to 1970.
• Builds support for an EDDM opt-out and, longer term, a federal Do Not Mail registry: the petition and other ways to help, and a legislative toolkit with a model bill.

Who runs Zero Junk Mail?

Zero Junk Mail is built and maintained by Jake Waitzman of Birmingham, Alabama. Jake started the Change.org petition asking the Postal Service for an EDDM opt-out in January 2020, and this site is its companion. The site is designed and built by Jake's studio, Screendoor Studio.

Zero Junk Mail is independent. It is not affiliated with the U.S. Postal Service or with Change.org, which hosts the petition.

How do we source facts?

Primary sources first. Figures come from the Postal Service's own reports (Postal Facts, its financial results, the Domestic Mail Manual and the Household Mail Survey), the Postal Regulatory Commission, the Government Accountability Office, the EPA, and court records. When only a secondary source exists, such as a news report on an older poll, the page says so.

Every figure carries its source and the year it describes, linked where it appears or listed at the end of the page. When a widely repeated statistic can't be traced to a primary source, we leave it out rather than repeat it.

In October 2026 the site's figures were checked against primary sources, and several junk mail statistics from 2007 and 2008 advocacy material were replaced or removed. The environmental impact page explains which ones and why.

How do corrections work?

If you find an error, tell us through the contact page. We check the claim against the primary source, fix confirmed errors, and note the date of the correction on the page.