Some years ago, an elderly friend was inundated with junk mail. SHe had thousands of pieces that she couldn't keep up with because she had to open everything, in case there was money or postage stamps in them (there often is, but not often enough, IMO) and because her name and address were on them. She couldn't process it fast enough, so she started bagging it up, but the piles of bags soon became a slightly different problem. We pulled two truckloads of them out of her house, and they weren't even all that old. Maybe two-ish years worth.
We took it to our house with good intentions, but after hours and hours of shredding and Sharpie-ing, we decided that putting it in our recycling can, at our house, two towns away from hers, was close enough. Nothing untoward happened.
Getting it gone so it doesn't accumulate is the key takeaway.
