I don't know if it's the same with the Royal Mail, but in the US they need a truck to carry all the junk (advertising) mail.

Back "in the day" the average person got about 4 "letters" per month (3 utility bills and a bank statement?). Now you might add a credit card bill, a magazine or two, and/or a couple of insurance/medical bills, still less than a dozen pieces per month; but I get an average of 8 pieces of "mail" per day. (Since they started "targeted advertising" and including personal names and information, I've worn out two shredders just on the junk mail.)

The situation is much the same with the daily newspaper. A 12-year old kid used to walk a route to deliver 60 to 100 papers (6 or 8 pages each?) but now the papers are 6 pages of "news"(?) and 15 to 60 pages of ads. Apparently the advertising does pay well, since my local newspaper is still $0.52/day and it was about $0.23 per day back when the kid threw it in the bushes 60-odd years ago. With the same inflation rate, I should be able to buy at least a new Toyota for about $1,950.00 instead of $19,000.00.

John