Well, it’s happened. First there were the “do not call” lists, then “do not e-mail” lists, and now someone in the New York State Legislature wants to create a “do not mail” list (New York Assembly bill A01292). It’s easy to see how, at first blush, such a measure might seem harmless, but a more careful study can easily prove that such a measure would be devastating to many New York businesses, consumers and the U.S. Postal Service.
There’s a rationale behind do-not-e-mail lists. E-mail services don’t come free. With postal mail, the situation is different. The sender, not the recipient, is the one who pays to have mail delivered.
The bill’s sponsors say discarded unsolicited mail is a major environmental problem. Yet, in its most recent study on Non-Hazardous Solid Waste, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency published data that clearly shows that if all advertising mail distributed in the United States was thrown away; if every catalog, shopper publication, fundraising letter, church bulletin and sale notice was tossed out; if none was made from recycled materials and none was recycled or composted; then advertising mail would total less than 4/10,000ths (.0003951%) of the solid waste produced in the United States (4.5 million tons of advertising mail divided by 11.387 billion tons of solid waste). Four-tenths of 1%! That’s a major problem?
The sponsors also say that more than 40% of all direct mail is unread. Yet the USPS, which has been observing this issue for years through its annual household diary studies, says that of all who receive unsolicited advertising mail, only 5% claim to object and just 18% of such mail is discarded unread. In fact, the majority of those surveyed have reported finding such mail of some value — even if only for its informational content.
Then there is the economic impact on New York businesses. According to the Direct Marketing Association, some $2.5 billion worth of goods and services are developed by the state’s DM companies. For a New York direct marketing firm, A01292 would be a fine “How-do-you-do.”
Finally, let’s not forget the Constitution, which says that the power to establish post roads (that is, the rules that govern how the U.S. postal system should be operated) is reserved for Congress, not any individual or select group of states. Ideas as bad as this shouldn’t be allowed to see the light of day.
GENE A. DEL POLITO is president of the Association for Postal Commerce (PostCom) in Arlington, VA.
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