MORE than half a billion pieces of junk mail land on the doormats of Yorkshire houses every year.

A study showed householders receive 534,809,600 direct mail items annually.

It is enough to stretch from the UK to New York 22 times.

The recipients spend nearly 4.5m hours wading through the unsolicited post.

Six out of 10 people throw all of it in the bin.

But 94% said they were interested in some of the items they received and wanted to be able to choose what came through the door.

The research was by website www.chooseyour mail.co.uk

Co-founder Mark Jackson said: “It’s staggering to see how much mail people are receiving from companies.

“We all know how annoying it is to receive something that just isn’t relevant.

“Yet our research shows that actually many people don’t want to top all of it, just the bits that aren’t of interest.”