Concord Monitor -- Make it easy to end flood of junk mail

This week, the House Commerce Committee heard testimony on a bill that gives the people of New Hampshire a choice to end unwanted direct mail solicitations. Rep. Susi Nord introduced House Bill 1506 to create a Do Not Mail registry modeled after the wildly popular Do Not Call registry.

Since 2003, the Do Not Call registry has provided more than 150 million people with a free and comprehensive way to end intrusive telemarketing calls. We believe people should have a similar choice about the wasteful unsolicited mail they receive.

Each year, New Hampshire is inundated with 58 million pounds of direct mail, or 44 pounds per person. Nationally, 100 million trees, an area larger than the White Mountain National Forest, would be needed to produce the 98 billion pieces of direct mail sent to Americans each year.

These are not abstract numbers. They represent some of North America's most vital natural resources. Much direct mail can be traced to logging in Canada's Boreal forests. The Boreal stores more carbon than any terrestrial ecosystem on earth, providing a crucial defense against climate change. As we address climate change in other parts of our lives, the Boreal is being logged at a rate of 2 acres per minute, 24 hours a day. Logging these forests for junk mail is simply out of sync with our priorities in the 21st century.

The greenhouse gas emissions resulting from the 98 billion pieces of direct mail sent each year is equal to the emissions of 3.5 million cars, 1.7 million households' electricity use, or burning enough coal to fill 68,000 railroad cars.

The Do Not Mail Opt-Out Registry is about our right to end unwanted solicitations from entering our homes.

Currently, there is no simple or comprehensive way to unsubscribe from the hundreds of direct mail lists.

In 2007, the Center for a New American Dream commissioned a Zogby International poll that found that 89 percent of respondents supported a Do Not Mail registry to make it easier to opt out of unsolicited ad mail.

Like the Do Not Call registry, the Do Not Mail registry would greatly reduce the quantity of unwanted solicitations. It would be funded by the direct mailers when they purchase the list of registered individuals. This registry will also allow exemptions for businesses with which there is a preexisting relationship, political organizations, charities and small businesses.

Because everyone should be committed to addressing direct mail, ForestEthics is creating a set of "best practices" for all direct mailers, including nonprofit and political mailers.

This bill will face opposition from the U.S. Postal Service and the Direct Marketing Association.

The Postal Service will claim that reducing direct mail will bankrupt the Postal Service and cause the loss of countless postal jobs.

What the Postal Service will probably neglect to mention is that the Government Accountability Office already considers the Postal Service to be one of the most inefficient government entities.

The Postal Service is already cutting postal jobs by contracting with private carriers, transitioning to automated machines and providing financial discounts to direct mailers for presorting and delivering their mail closer to the final destination (drop shipping).

The Direct Marketing Association will explain that approximately a third of direct mail is recycled and the rest could be recycled. This is true, but reducing the production of unwanted solicitations is vastly preferable to wasting natural resources on unwanted mailings.

The Do Not Mail registry provides us choice and control over what enters our homes. If you would like to continue receiving direct mail, it will certainly continue to find your mailbox. However, if you would like the option to stop unwanted direct mail from devastating our forests and natural resources and wasting our time and money, we encourage you to support the statewide Do Not Mail registry in New Hampshire. Contact your state representatives, and tell them that you want your mailbox back. For more information, e-mail livefreeofjunk@nhecwb.com.

(Steven Krieger is the legislative consultant for ForestEthics, a nonprofit forest advocacy group. George DeWolf of Wentworth is a Do Not Mail activist.)