Fighting For Junk Mail

Spam, telemarketing, and junk mail are birds of a feather.  But, the Postal Service doesn't let us opt out of junk mail...and it wants to keep it that way.

Chris Pearson, a state legislator in Vermont, had a sense that the people were with him when he proposed a bill last November to allow residents to block junk mail.

He got media attention, radio interview requests and e-mails from constituents eager to stop the credit card offers, furniture catalogues and store fliers that increasingly clog their mailboxes.

Then came the pushback from the postmasters, who told Pearson and other lawmakers that "standard" mail, the post office's name for junk mail, has become the lifeblood of the U.S. Postal Service and that jobs depend on it.

I feel no guilt about being on the no-call list and thus not contributing to the employment of telemarketers.  The same thought would apply to junk mail and the Postal Service.  Bulk rates boost the amount of junk mail that's sent, which increases the workload for the Postal Service.  Seems rather incestuous.

Barred by law from lobbying, the Postal Service is nonetheless trying to make its case before a growing number of state legislatures that are weighing bills to create Do Not Mail registries, which are similar to the popular National Do Not Call Registry.

The agency has printed 3,000 "information packets" about the economic value of standard mail, with specific data for each of the 18 states that have considered a Do Not Mail Registry. It has dispatched postmasters to testify before legislative committees around the country.

"The Postal Service has come in and clobbered legislators," said Todd Paglia, executive director of ForestEthics, an environmental group that has collected 289,000 signatures on an online petition to Congress that calls for a National Do Not Mail Registry. "It's really a people-versus-special interest kind of battle."

The Postal Service is working closely with the Direct Marketing Association, the trade group that represents retailers and the printing industry, in its new campaign -- Mail Moves America -- which is designed to quash the Do Not Mail initiatives.

So far, their efforts appear effective. None of the states where Do Not Mail legislation has been introduced since 2007 has approved a law. And no similar legislation is pending in Congress.

And most of the junk mail ends up in landfills.  Some of it can be recycled, but it would be better to not create and transport the junk mail in the first place.

Perhaps surprisingly, environmental groups -- whose members say they are concerned about junk mail -- are cool to the idea of a registry that prohibits marketers from sending mail to those enrolled and that fines violators.

One reason may be that most environmental groups are themselves junk mailers. They use standard mail for their solicitation letters.

A national registry "would affect anybody who mails," said Laura Hickey, senior director of global warming education at the National Wildlife Foundation, which belongs to the Direct Marketing Association. "I don't think it would be any different whether you were for-profit or nonprofit." As an alternative, the National Wildlife Foundation, the Natural Resources Defense Council and other groups have created Catalogue Choice, a program that asks retailers to voluntarily stop sending catalogues to anyone who signs up for the free online service at http://www.catalogchoice.org.

It's not much, but it's better than nothing...and it distracts many folks from how environmental groups are polluting the world via junk mail.

The Direct Marketing Association operates its own registry (http://www.dmachoice.org) and in an e-mail sent last November, instructed its members to ignore Catalogue Choice.

The DMA's website says it's had a mail preference service since 1971.  You have to provide a credit card number to validate your identity when trying to opt out of (or into) mailings from DMA members.  Registering on-line is free, but it costs a dollar to get them to process requests by mail.  And, DMA members don't have to honor requests to stop their mailings.  What a service.

Comments

[Ten Bears]

I've got not problem with the delete button. Back when I was early in this game, I often waxed philosophical about how quickly one ceases to exist... when all it takes is a mouse click to remove them from the system.

[Ik]

First of all it has always been "the people verses the special interest groups" so nothing new there.

The USPS needs to understand it is not the peoples place to insure they have a job. Besides if they weren't so grossly over paid maybe a stamp wouldn't cost nearly half a dollar now with increases looming on the horizon. One thing is for sure the USPS workers are over paid and over rated.

If people don't want junk mail in their mail box the people should have the right to have it that way. The USPS forgets that mailbox isn't theirs its mine and I should have control over what goes in it not them.

The other group of junk mail distributors is those that fling their paper in the yard. Technically that is littering if you think about it like a logical person.

Anyway there should be a No Junk Mail Policy and it shouldn't cost anything. We the people should be able to walk into the USPS that serves us and sign up right there. After all wouldn't it make logical sense for us to go directly to the branch that is delivering the most useless form of our trees into our mail boxes?

Here's another thought. When we go on vacation we have to have our mail postponed (very inconvenient) or have someone empty it out every day due to the worthless mail that gets stuffed into it.

We wouldn't have to do this if the junk mail wasn't part of the equation. How many legitimate mailing do we get a week? Personally we get about 3 pieces of legitimate mail a week. So if I go on a 2 week vacation when I get home there should only be 6 pieces of mail in the box. But as it is if I go on a 2 week vacation and do nothing the postman wouldn't be able to stuff anything in the box.

It is why when I pay my bills I go online. Hopefully one day I can take down my mailbox as there is no law requiring I have one. there are laws that state where it can be located but nothing says I have to have a mailbox.