FROM January until December 2011, I collected all the unsolicited leaflets, catalogues, booklets and packages that were delivered to our address. In total I received the following unsolicited items: 474 leaflets and business cards; 51 booklets, magazines, directories, etc; 16 ‘clothing collection’ packets.

These are either, deposited in our porch, or are delivered with our mail, or fall out of other publications, such as newspapers, which we have had delivered.

All in all, these 525 paper items weighed around 8.3 kgs. As there are about 7,500 houses in Marlow, and, should they all receive the same amount of unwanted communications, 62.25 metric tonnes of paper will have been manufactured this year, in most cases, ending up in waste bins.

In addition to this enormous waste of paper, the agents that charities employ to collect clothing are just as bad. If you read the instructions on these packets, requesting items of clothing, you will see that if you leave an unopened packet outside your door/porch, it will be collected. Not true! I receive about 16 of the packets per year. No packet has ever been collected as stated.

We give our unwanted clothes to Oxfam, so we do not have any need for other charities’ collection packets. Again, if this is true for the whole of Marlow, 120,000 packets will have been delivered over the year, and, as my pile weighs about 0.1 kgs, this means 12 metric tonnes of these packets have been delivered to Marlow residents – the majority of which, I suggest, have not been collected. This means that approximately 74 tonnes (62 tonnes of paper and 12 tonnes of plastic) are manufactured each year and delivered to Marlow homes. Whilst many responsible people go out of their way to reduce waste, businesses and charities are undoing our efforts.

Of course it is us, Wycombe District Council taxpayers, who pay for the collection of this waste, even if the paper items (but not the plastic packets) are then recycled.

How much simpler would it be if we could opt out and avoid all these unrequested unwanted and annoying deliveries.

John Laker, Spinfield Lane, Marlow