The U.S. Postal Service is proposing a series of rule changes affecting the way automatable flat-size Standard A (advertising) and B Mail is prepared by mailers for processing and handling.
One change requires commercial and nonprofit Standard A and B and first class mailers to co-sack flat-size mailings and irregular-shaped packages entering the mailstream at either presorted postage rates or automatable rates.
Another requires Standard A mailers, who pre-sort their flats by Enhanced Carrier Route and mailers of bound-printed matter, to either sack or palletize mailings.
Postal officials said the changes “are intended to align mail preparation more closely” with the way that mail–catalogs and other non-letter size mail–is handled and processed.
According to postal officials, the co-sacking and co-traying of mail should result in fewer, less full trays and sacks of mail and an overall reduction in the number of trays and sacks mailers have to use to transport mailings to a postal facility.
The changes may also result in lower postage rates for some mail that will move to a finer sack pre-sort level while helping the financially ailing USPS to reduce its mail-processing costs, officials said.
The USPS, which is predicting to end its current fiscal year in September with a loss of between $2 billion and $3 billion, has been ordered by the Board of Governors to cut costs.
