What’s been bogging down the U.S. Postal Service that could lead to a situation like this? The recession is part of the problem, with overall postal revenues dropping. The dominance of the web is another hurdle, as most households with Internet access send emails instead of letters and pay at least one bill online, meaning less postage is spent to mail a check to the billing company. In fact, most of those who pay bills online cite environmental preservation as part of their motivation to go paperless, which is great news for the planet but bad news for the post office. The combination of these two factors has caused the single biggest drop in postal volume in the agency’s 234-year history, just in this past year alone. Less volume means less revenue, which also means having to cut postal routes, offer early retirement to workers and find other means to recoup the losses.

Some critics say that the U.S. Postal Service should have privatized long ago. They say that the bureaucratic nature of the organization has created a bloated, inefficient agency that would best be served by a complete overhaul. The post office is indeed trying to keep up with the times through online services and other means, but it hasn’t been enough. How could the post office have stayed in business this long with the Internet and economy taking bites out of its revenue?

The answer, unfortunately, is junk mail. Junk mail delivery has become the foundation of the U.S. Postal Service’s business model, with 800 pieces of junk mail delivered to each household per year. Junk mail alone hasn’t been enough to shore up the entire agency – the U.S. Postal Service reported a loss of $7 billion in 2008 – but it’s been a temporary fix that’s slowed the decline of the post office and allowed the government to put off revamping the system. Now, the overhaul can’t wait any longer, which may be good news for those who dislike junk mail (that’s pretty much everyone); changing how the U.S. Postal Service does business might help it end its reliance on junk mail, which might then lead to more options for cutting junk mail altogether.

It remains to be seen just what will be done to the U.S. Postal Service, but one thing is true: This is a new era of communication, and even post offices must evolve to accommodate the changes. As Geoff Caldwell of the Wichita Independent Examiner put it, “The postal closings will bring pain to some, inconvenience for others, and ‘change’ for all, but they will not bring the end of the world.”

In the meantime, you can stop your own junk mail, help the environment and cut down on your own aggravation by signing up for the Privacy Council’s list removal service. The service removes you from all major marketing lists and keeps you on the “Do Not Call” registry so that your telemarketing calls go down. Click here to get started!

Well, for starters, first-class mail isn’t the only rate going up. Large envelopes, parcels, postcards and other types of mail are increasing in price, too. The Business Pundit blog lists a few of these increases and links to more of them.

What about those “forever” stamps? If you bought “forever” stamps (the ones with the Liberty Bell on them), you can still use them without tacking on an additional 2-cent stamp. The point of the “forever” distinction is that, no matter how high postage gets, those stamps are still usable for a standard letter. But before you start thinking that you can buy a giant pile of forever stamps and sell them for a profit when the postage rates go up again, read this post by Phil Izzo at the Wall Street Journal blog about how postage rates can’t go up faster than the rate of inflation. So even though this is the fifth postage hike since 2000, the rates aren’t actually going up that fast, and you probably can’t make any money stockpiling forever stamps at the current rate and selling them later.

How about if you just want to mail stuff? Many people have long complained about the cost and hassle of postage, and when you combine the cost with the impact that all that mailed paper has on the environment, it’s no surprise that many consumers are turning to cheaper, more environmentally-gentle methods of correspondence. Online bill pay systems eliminate the need to mail bills to the power company, phone company, etc. each month. E-cards and e-vites are a cheap, eco-friendly way to invite friends and family to special events or to send well-wishes. And of course, email has become the go-to communication method for many people because of its ease, speed and inexpensive nature. We may not be a paperless society yet, but  it’s clear that many aspects of our lives are indeed more paperless than ever.

So why have snailmail at all? A large percentage of the mail sent today is junk mail anyway, and that accounts for roughly 100 million trees cut down each year. Why not eliminate snail mail altogether? The staff at wowOwow.com posed this question, receiving some interesting responses. Some readers pointed out that 44 cents to send a letter cross-country is still a good value, and another pointed out that the etiquette of sending handwritten thank-you notes can never be supplanted by email. Perhaps the best answer, though, was this comment by the user Green Tears: “After sifting through bills, junk mail, catalogs and magazines, whose face doesn’t light up at the sight of a piece of handwritten personal correspondence?” No matter how electronic and paperless we get, the value of a piece of personal mail still matters, perhaps more so now than ever.

While postage and personal letters are here to stay, we can still do something to stop junk mail from clogging up our mailboxes and our landfills. Sign up for the Privacy Council’s list removal service to get your name taken off the major direct marketing lists. When the junk mail stops coming, the only mail you’ll get will be the kind that actually matters to you. Sign up for the service by clicking here!

Of course, some people look for alternative uses for their junk mail and other unwanted materials. We’ve featured articles about junk mail-inspired artwork before, but now, consider this: Recycle Runway, clothing made from recycled goods.

From their website: “Elegant garments created from recycled materials are exhibited in high-traffic airports to grab travelers’ attention and inspire personal action. Community-based presentations and workshops launch young peoples’ imaginations while providing information on how to conserve resources on a grassroots level.”

Their mission is great, but the real fun is looking at the clothes and trying to figure out what each outfit is made of. The dress made from junk mail and catalogs is amazing; see if you can spot it in their gallery.

While the best course of action in dealing with your junk mail is doing what you can to make it stop, such as by signing up for The Privacy Council’s List Removal Service, it’s refreshing to hear about people who find creative uses for the annoying refuse that most people discard. If an unwanted catalog can become a pretty skirt, or a stack of credit card offers can be a work of art, there’s a somewhat positive outcome to the plague of junk mail. Recycle Runway is doing an amazing job of raising awareness and making beauty out of trash.

I don’t think anyone, not even junk mail artists, would argue that junk mail should cease entirely. Do your part and sign up for The Privacy Council’s List Removal Service today.

Chimpanzees are native to Africa, where the ever-increasing human population there is taking a toll on the chimpanzee habitat. Aside from deforestation conducted by farmers, commercial logging is a major threat to chimps. Much of the problem arises when local governments sell forest concessions to timber companies from more “civilized” countries. The companies come into areas such as the Ivory Coast and Zaire and often clear cut the forest land, leaving uninhabitable desert behind. Additionally, the roads that the timber companies cut into the landscape lead illegal “bushmeat” hunters and other poachers to the remote locations where chimps and other animals make their homes. Chimpanzees have a slow reproduction rate and can’t keep up with the loss of their numbers, leading to their presence on the endangered species list.

What does this have to do with the Privacy Council and ending junk mail? Think about where junk mail comes from. 100 million trees are cut down every year to make the unwanted paper that shows up in our mailboxes; that’s the equivalent of the entire Rocky Mountain National Forest every four months. The trees used to make junk mail come from all over the world, and where the timber is harvested, habitats are threatened. Reducing our junk mail doesn’t just remove an annoyance from our lives or keep paper out of landfills… It also preserves the ecosystems that animal species, including endangered species like chimps, rely on worldwide.

Sign up for Privacy Council’s removal service today by clicking here, and do your part to reduce worldwide deforestation. Chimpanzees don’t make good pets, as the events of this week illustrate, but if their habitat continues to dwindle, they won’t have anywhere left to live at all.

First, consider Janet Nelson, whom we learned about via Art News Blog. She’s behind the “A Planet Named Janet” blog, and she uses spam subject lines to create single-panel comics. The series of cartoons, called “Innocent Spam,” reinterprets spam subjects in more family-friendly, hilarious ways. As Janet herself says on her page, “Wouldn’t it be nice if all spam were innocent?” She places the cartoons into her blog periodically, so be sure to visit her site if you’d like a few laughs at the expense of clueless spammers. 

Also, check out Linzie Hunter and her series of Spam One Liners. We found this artist through Art News Blog, as well, and her use of spam subject lines is just as entertaining and creative as Janet Nelson’s. Linzie is a U.K. artist who turns spam subject lines into colorful, playful postcards and prints. She recently released a book of her creations, called Secret Weapon: 30 Hand Painted Spam Postcards (link goes to Amazon.com, where the book retailed for $9.95 as of 1/4/08). According to her bio on Amazon.com, she enjoys traditional print-making and book-binding when she’s not creating digital freelance artwork for a variety of clients (or making beautiful pieces of art from the unsolicited emails in her inbox).

Finally, don’t miss Alex Dragulescu, a computer artist who grows digital ”spam plants.” As we learned from both Alex’s site and CNET, Alex created algorithms that analyze the data and text contained within spam email messages and then create plantlike artwork from the findings. The spam plants expand and develop based on the spam that comes through the system, a process that Alex notes can serve to illustrate how technology changes art. As he told CNET, ”My efforts (have been) to expose the ubiquitous forms in which data and technology are both actively and passively shaping the ways we perceive and construct ourselves and others.” And for Alex, it all started with the spam messages that annoy and frustrate the rest of us. He claims that spam led him to see text differently, and the artistic creations that bloom from his algorithms are delightfully unique, thanks to spammers trying to unload everything from shady prescriptions to knockoff watches.  

With the rest of us struggling to handle the onslaught of unsolicited email messages, it’s good to know that some people are turning the annoyance of spam into creations of beauty, humor and art. So the next time you shudder at the thought of your email inbox, maybe you should consider buying some paintbrushes or grabbing a sketching pencil and unleashing your own creative side.

Sources for this article: A Planet Named Janet, Art News Blog, Linzie Hunter’s webpage, CNET, Alex Dragulescu’s page

Steven Padgett, a mailman in Apex, NC, received probation in federal court last week for refusing to deliver junk mail to the people on his route. For at least seven years, he took the junk mail home, stored it in his garage, and buried it in his backyard, rather than drag it along on his mail deliveries. The 58-year-old mailman has diabetes and heart problems. According to his attorney, he was overwhelmed by the “torrents of direct advertising mail” he was forced to deal with, so in his efforts to be the best possible mailman he could be, he opted not to deliver the junk mail.

Not a single person on ”Mailman Steve’s” route of hundreds of residents complained about the lack of junk mail they were receiving over the past several years. In fact, when the neighborhood was notified of his crime, only one person responded, and that was to defend and thank Padgett for his work. The local newspaper, the Raleigh News and Observer, also received a flood of support for Padgett. Some people even requested that he be made the mailman in THEIR neighborhoods. By all accounts, he was widely regarded as a great mailman and a nice guy, friendly to new residents and careful with packages.

The Direct Marketing Association, of course, was not pleased by Padgett’s moves to spare the homes on his route from junk mail. The DMA boasts 3,400 members and sees direct mail as a way to get coupons and deals to the customers. The DMA’s public affairs director, Sandy Cutts, noted that eight out of ten people look at their junk mail, and many take advantage of the advertised deals. Cutts also asked that it not be called “junk” mail. The Postal Service doesn’t call it “junk” mail, either; the term is “standard mail,” and it makes up about half of the overall mail sent (and about a third of the Postal Service’s revenue).   

Padgett got away with his efforts until a utility worker near his home noticed the mail bins stacking up and alerted the authorities. Padgett was charged with delaying and destroying U.S. mail, a federal offense. His crime could have earned him five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, but instead, the judge sentenced him to three years of probation, a fine of $3,000 and 500 hours of community service. As the judge put it, “You’ll get credit for a life well lived.” Padgett is no longer employed with the Postal Service, of course.

So is Padgett a hero or a villain? It depends on whom you ask. We at Privacy Council support the reduction of junk mail, but stockpiling it after the postage has been paid is obviously not the best method for dealing with it! We can’t condone interfering with the process of the mail. We can, however, remove you from the DMA’s mailing lists so that less junk mail is sent in the first place. This reduces the flood of annoying advertising and assures that less waste ends up in landfills….including those in our own backyards.

Sources for this article: The LA Times

Privacy Council wants you to know just how much waste is due to junk mail and catalogs. In a given year, it’s estimated that 19 billion catalogs are mailed to consumers. Of those, 5.6 million tons of catalogs and direct mail ads are put into landfills. That’s so much waste that it’s hard to comprehend! According to Worldwatch Institute (as quoted at Carbonrally.com), the United States has 5 percent of the world’s population, but consumes 30 percent of the world’s paper. Can we recycle it? Sure, but according to the Center for a New American Dream, only 22 percent of junk mail is recycled today. Besides, that doesn’t even begin to address the energy and trees used in making all the junk mail in the first place, then recycling it later. It’s a blow to the environment on several fronts, but you can do something about it.

First, sign up for Privacy Council’s environmentally-friendly service and get yourself removed from the major catalog mailing lists. This will drastically cut the amount of junk mail you receive, so you’ll know you’re doing your part to reduce the paper waste. How much waste can you personally help to prevent? Estimates indicate that, on average, consumers receive 110 catalogs per household per year, so over ten years, you could help to keep more than a thousand catalogs from ending up in a landfill. That makes a real difference.

Also, make sure that you aren’t granting companies the right to sell your contact information to mailing lists when you sign up for a new product or service (check the fine print and opt-out whenever possible). Finally, if you still want to receive a few specific catalogs during the holidays, contact those companies directly and ask them to send you their catalogs, perhaps at a lesser pace (instead of four or five catalogs per company during the holiday season, for example, the company could send you just one or two catalogs). 

‘Tis the season to be festive, but don’t forget about the environment!   

Sources for this article: Center for a New American Dream, Carbonrally, The Virginia Gazette    

After 30 days of providing open membership to our community-driven list removal service, we’re proud to announce the 500th member.

Collectively, we’ve removed everyone from 4,320 marketing lists, including Do Not Call and all of the direct marketing and catalog lists.

This has reduced waste from junk mail, and hopefully, improved the quality of your life.

If you are still receiving any form of unwanted solicitation, I invite you to please email me personally, and I will assign the appropriate resources to work to end this solicitation.

jhartman@yovia.com

Spread the word,
Jalali Hartman

Those contests that pop up in malls, festivals and sporting events are less about giving away a free vehicle and more about collecting consumer data. When you fill out the card, you have a minuscule chance of winning the bike (or boat, or car, or RV), but you usually DO give the company conducting the contest the right to contact you with other offers. In fact, other contests, brochures, catalogs and offers may also start to appear in your mail as your information is sold to third parties. You will also get phone calls, and they often start with something like, “Ms. Smith, you filled out an entry form at the Bass Pro Shop in June of 2006, and we’re calling to extend another great offer to you…” It can take years for the calls to stop, even if you tell them point-blank to take you off their lists. Unfortunately, this is the voice of experience talking; I didn’t win the boat I registered for, but I still get calls with new offers to this day.

The same advice goes for sweepstakes forms you receive in the mail. If you want to enter to win that fabulous grand prize, read the fine print and see whether you can “opt-out” of being put on any mailing lists when you enter. If you can’t stay off their mailing lists, don’t enter the sweepstakes! Your low odds of winning don’t compensate for the high odds of getting more junk mail. The contact information for the people who enter those contests is almost always sold or rented to other contest companies, sweepstakes and lotteries.

The bottom line is this: No matter what contest you enter, whether at the mall or in your mail, ALWAYS check the contest rules to see how your information will be used. Some contests are more likely to be the source of future junk mail headaches for you than others, and the fine print will usually disclose that information if you investigate. Look for any suggestion that you’re giving consent to receive future information, extra offers or additional communications.

If you do fill out that contest form and regret it later, what can you do to stop the sweepstakes junk mail from rolling in? You can start by calling the company sending the information. They usually print a number on their forms, so you can contact them and ask to be removed. Sometimes, the company will include a reply envelope in their pile of junk mail (with which you’re supposed to enter the contest that they’re advertising), so you can try putting instructions in that envelope to remove you from the mailing list and then send it back to the company.

And the next time you see the seemingly-innocuous kiosk at the mall that advertises a free car to a lucky winner who fills out an entry form, keep walking.

Sources for this article: The Maryland Attorney General’s Consumer Publications, Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, Contests at About.com