Almost every day, I go out to the mailbox to get the mail. On the way back, I toss most of it into the blue bin.
That’s not unusual, right? It’s junk mail. Everybody does it.
For decades, I’ve read articles calling for an end to junk mail. Opinion polls say most people don’t want it. For years, I’ve assumed the flow of junk mail was going to stop.
It hasn’t.
While the junk mail problem is enormous, a slight change in how it is routed could cut it down to size. The problem will be described first, then the small change. Finally, the possible consequences of that change will be considered.
Junk mail comes from trees.
The next time you toss out a piece of junk mail, consider: A tree is cut down. It’s loaded on a truck and taken to a mill. It’s put into a chipper and then made into pulp, which is then used to make paper. The paper is loaded on a truck and driven to a printer. Advertising is printed on the paper. Then it’s delivered to your mailbox.
Here’s where you come in. You take it out of your mailbox and toss it into the recycling bin.
The discarded paper is then driven to a recycling center. It is made into blank paper, ready once again to be printed on. Or it’s driven straight to a landfill.
Waste-Away, a recycling company, estimates that 100,000,000 trees are cut down each year to create over one billion pieces of junk mail, 42% of which will end up in landfills, unopened.
All the trees. All the machines. All the time. All the money. All to be tossed away, unread.
Think of the environment. Those trees remove greenhouse gases from the atmosphere. Those chainsaws, trucks, paper mills, and landfills produce greenhouse gases. Ocean Futures Society estimates that the production of paper for junk mail releases the same amount of greenhouse gas as nine million gasoline-powered cars. Your junk mail contributes to climate change.
So destructive and for nothing.
What can you do?
Well, you could go to the website of DMAChoice, fill in a form, give them six dollars, and they would notify lots of advertisers that you don’t want their advertising. DMAChoice is a nonprofit organization once attached to the Direct Mail Association, now called the Association of National Advertisers.
For six dollars, they would reduce the flow of unwanted advertising to your mailbox for 10 years. They’re very frank about the limitations of their service. They say, “This will not eliminate all promotional mail.”
But wait a minute. Why should you have to pay six bucks to stop things from being sent to you that you don’t want?
I mean, shouldn’t either the advertisers or the people who want the advertising pay the six bucks?
And there it is – the solution.
Flip the script. Instead of making those who don’t want junk mail fill out forms and pay fees, make those who actually want junk mail fill out forms and pay fees.
These new forms would give advertisers permission to send junk mail. Those of us who don’t fill in the forms would have opted out. The default position would be no junk mail.
I mean, the DMAChoice website already exists. Instead of being the opt-out website, make it the opt-in website. How hard would that be? Advertisers might pay a fee to be on the list. And perhaps consumers could pay a small fee to select which of the various catalogs and flyers they want and receive only those. For the rest of us, no junk mail.
If this simple change is made, the volume of junk mail would probably go way down. I mean, how many people are going to fill in a form and spend six bucks to get junk mail, right? Greenhouse gases from paper mills, delivery trucks, and recycling trucks would be reduced. Resources, money, labor, energy, and time would be saved. Entire forests would be saved. Climate change would be slowed. This simple change would help save the planet.
Why hasn’t this been done already?
A key reason is that the United States Postal Service actually wants to deliver junk mail because it helps them pay their bills. More desirable mail, such as parcels and first-class letters, simply doesn’t raise enough money to cover their costs, about 74% of which are for personnel.
The USPS is conflicted. They know that less junk mail would mean fewer mail trucks. Fewer trucks mean less pollution, less traffic, and less overhead. They know that less junk mail means fewer paper mills. They know that less junk mail would help save the planet.
But they also know that less junk mail would mean fewer postal delivery drivers. What would happen to them?
Good news.
The country currently needs truck drivers — lots of them.
According to Altline, a finance company, the country currently needs approximately 24,000 more truck drivers. While this shortage has been ongoing for years, it has recently been growing rapidly for two reasons.
First, there is the ongoing crackdown on immigrants living in the country without documentation. By one estimate, about 100,000 such immigrants are, at least for now, driving trucks in the U.S. One trucker recruiting agency reports that “The trucking industry… is most likely to bear the brunt of the mass deportation plan.”
Second, the White House recently issued an executive order requiring truck drivers to be proficient in English.
Taken together, this means it is an excellent time to be an experienced, English-speaking truck driver with legal authorization to live and work in the country.
Yes, retraining would be necessary for some postal delivery drivers, especially for the big rigs, and yes, painful career adjustments would have to be made. And, while the average salary of a truck driver is roughly the same as that of a postal delivery driver, the pension and benefits packages of truckers could use some improvement. Maybe the current shortage will provide drivers with just the right leverage to win those improvements.
Most importantly, in the end, these new truck drivers would be delivering things that people actually want and need. Instead of spending half their time performing “make-work” that wastes resources and harms the planet, they would be providing a real service, doing useful work, full-time.
Here’s a thought: if DMAChoice doesn’t want to run the opt-in website for junk mail, let the United States Postal Service run it.
Save the planet. Stop junk mail. The right time is right now! Support opt-in only!
Scott Chambers is a cartoonist, author, editor and songwriter. He lives in Encinitas.
