Do Not Call? How about Do Not Mail

In November, Political Reps tackled the national Do Not Call registry. Now a bill introduced in the New Hampshire House would create a Do Not Mail Registry -- a program for junk mail modeled after the Do Not Call registry.

In an Concord Monitor opinion piece, legislative consultant for ForestEthics Steven Krieger lays out an environmental case against junk mailings. He tosses out statistics like:

• 44 pounds of junk mail per person annually in New Hampshire (that's 58 million pounds of direct mail.)
• 100 million trees used nationally to produce the 98 billion pieces of direct mail sent to Americans each year.
• Canada's Boreal forests, logged for direct mailing purposes, are disappearing at a rate of 5 acres per minute, 24 hours a day.
• The 98 billion pieces of direct mail sent each year is equal to:
• Burning enough coal to fill 68,000 railroad cars
• The emissions of 3.5 million cars
• 1.7 million households' electricity use

Other key points:

• Currently, there is no comprehensive way to unsubscribe from many direct mailing lists.

• Direct mailers would fund the registry when they purchase a list of registered individuals.
  

• The U.S. Postal Service and the Direct Marketing Association oppose the bill.
  

A Technorati search turned up little to no blogging activity concerning this topic.

-Dippold

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