Figures from the Federal Reserve show that “the number of checks paid in the United States has fallen from 42 billion in 2001, to 37 billion in 2003, and to 30 billion in 2006.”

Whoops. That’s 12 billion checks that vanished in just five years. You can bet that the trend continues and that future reports will show even fewer paper-based checks in 2008 and beyond.

Why is this a mailstream matter? Why are postal jobs at stake? Should the Postal Service be concerned?

In many cases the reduction in check volume reflects the increased use of electronic deposits. If this means that a foreman no longer goes around the plant floor on a Friday giving out envelopes then we do not have a postal issue in the sense of deliveries and such.

But many checks are sent through the mails. It’s difficult to imagine that we have 12 billion fewer checks and no mail volume reduction. Okay, it’s impossible to imagine.

The Postal Service and the mailer community cannot undo either progress or technology. But the question ought to be asked: If the volume represented by checks — those checks that really are in the mail — is being reduced, then what new volume is being created?

This is the essential issue for the mailer community. As postal volume declines and fixed expenses largely remain, increased hard costs per piece must be absorbed by remaining users. As prices per piece rise the incentive to avoid the postal system grows.

What to do? The Postal Service needs to demonstrate why paper-based communication and exchange have value in the electronic era. There’s a good argument to be made — if only someone would make it.

Technorati Tags: checks, mail, Mail & Jobs, mailstream, postal, volume

“The Christian Science Monitor,” says the paper, “plans major changes in April 2009 that are expected to make it the first newspaper with a national audience to shift from a daily print format to an online publication that is updated continuously each day.

“The changes at the Monitor will include enhancing the content on CSMonitor.com, starting weekly print and daily e-mail editions, and discontinuing the current daily print format.”

In rough terms, the Christian Science Monitor has a circulation between 75,000 to 100,000 papers a day. This circulation is primarily distributed through the mailstream but times are changing.

The paper says that “producing a website that can be updated 24/7 and delivered instantaneously ‘better fulfills Mrs. Eddy’s original vision’ for the Monitor to be daily than does a five-day-a-week paper delivered by mail with frequent delays.”

Let’s go to the numbers.

Imagine that the CSM has a circulation of 87,500 papers a day and most of it’s delivered by mail. Imagine as well that in a year there are roughly 260 weekday deliveries. This means a potential distribution of as many as 22,750,000 papers annually.

The real number of papers moving through the mails is likely smaller but the point is this: By going from a daily print paper to a weekly, and by shifting to a news product which is largely web-based, there is less mail volume.

This is not good for the Postal Service, not good for jobs within the postal system and it may be implausible for most newspapers.

It’s difficult to see how newspapers can win in this situation. The Washington Post, as one example, just reported third quarter numbers. Revenue from the newspaper division, said the company, “totaled $196.2 million for the third quarter of 2008, a decrease of 7% from $210.2 million in the third quarter of 2007; division revenue decreased 9% to $599.6 million for the first nine months of 2008, from $657.2 million for the first nine months of 2007.” Such revenue, after various charges, produced an operating loss of $82.7 million in the third quarter.

Now look at the Post’s online operations:

“Revenue generated by the Company’s online publishing activities, primarily washingtonpost.com, increased 13% to $30.8 million for the third quarter of 2008, from $27.2 million for the third quarter of 2007; online revenues increased 8% to $87.2 million in the first nine months of 2008, from $80.5 million for the first nine months of 2007. Display online advertising revenue grew 32% and 20% for the third quarter and first nine months of 2008, respectively. Online classified advertising revenue on washingtonpost.com declined 8% in the third quarter of 2008, and was down 2% for the first nine months of 2008. A small portion of the Company’s online publishing revenues is included in the magazine publishing division.”

By any standard $87 million in nine months is a bunch of money — but it’s not enough to fund the Post’s news gathering operations at their current level of quality, volume and expertise.

You can see the dilemma here: Newspapers need print distribution for the foreseeable future because paper-based products produce vastly higher revenues than online sites. The Postal Service needs newspapers, magazines and newsletters to continue as print publications because otherwise it will lose billions of pieces per year in volume. Everyone needs a strong Postal Service because of the jobs it represents nationwide. At the same time, declining circulation and mounting losses make print-based products increasingly difficult to justify for financial reasons.

You can bet that newspaper executives will be watching the Christian Science Monitor — at least to see if its new distribution plan has a prayer. And folks with an interest in the mailstream will be watching too.

Technorati Tags: Mail & Jobs, newspaper, online, post office, postal, Postal Service, transition

The current interest in mail-order shopping is hardly new. Mail order has been popular for more than a century, in large measure because direct mail assures low prices nationwide.

In the 1880s, consumers outside major cities depended on local stores with small inventories. Such stores were free to charge whatever the market would bear, and since there was often no other nearby source of goods and supplies, consumers paid high prices for common
merchandise.

Not only were local stores expensive, they were inefficient. Because they only served a small number of consumers, they could not place large orders. Without large orders, local stores could not get volume discounts that could mean big savings to consumers.

Enter mail order. Aaron Montgomery Ward started his catalog business in 1872 while Richard Sears mailed his first fliers in the 1880s. For the first time consumers were no longer captive. They could get attractive goods and prices whether they lived in the middle of Manhattan or a remote rural setting.

The contest between mail-order houses and local stores centered on three major issues — price, inventory and assurances — the very factors which made mail order houses successful.

On the issue of price, there was little doubt that mail order goods could be competitive.

The postal system allowed direct-mail companies to operate on a national basis. With a customer base that potentially included anyone with a mailbox, catalog companies could order in bulk, obtain huge discounts and then pass the savings on to consumers.

To see how this system worked consider the cost of bicycles. In 1897, according to Made in the USA, a history of American business by Thomas V. DiBacco, bicycles were selling from $75 to $100 — at least until the public saw the Sears Roebuck catalog. Sears, which sold thousands of units per week, charged $5 to $19.75 depending on the model selected.

Not only did Sears sell bikes, it sold just about everything. In 1897, according to the History of the U.S. Postal Service, “Sears boasted it was selling four suits and a watch every minute, a buggy every ten minutes, and a revolver every two minutes.”

Some mailers became so large that rather than buying from a factory at discount, they simply bought suppliers or created their own. In-house suppliers allowed mail-order firms to cut costs even further.

Not only did consumers want low prices, they also wanted variety — 20 kinds of dresses rather than two. Here again, the enormous volume generated by leading mail order houses made huge inventories not only possible but also practicable.

But price and variety, while important, have only limited value if the goods themselves are shoddy or poorly-made. So the mail-order firms protected consumers with powerful guarantees.

Montgomery Ward was one of the first companies to offer a money-back guarantee, and the Sears Roebuck pledge of “satisfaction guaranteed or your money back” is one of the best-known commitments in American business.

Today the marketplace has changed and so has mail-order marketing. Now firms of every size use mail order and the result has profoundly changed the American marketplace:

• Prices must be competitive regardless of location. If a local merchant cannot supply goods at reasonable costs, then consumers can turn to the national market created by direct mail.
• Because postage rates are the same everywhere, because the cost of a stamp is the same in both Alaska and New York, all sections of the country can compete on an equal footing.
• The economies of scale which work so well in manufacturing are also possible in retailing, especially when a “store” has no geographic boundaries.
• A company in a small community can reach consumers in the biggest markets nationwide through the mailstream.
• Merchandise which may be “seasonal” and out of stock in one area may be available through catalog companies that serve a national clientele.
• Residents of rural areas can get the same goods as those who live in major urban centers. And with mail order, those who live in country settings need pay no more than individuals who reside in the
  heart of major metropolitan regions.
• Mail order allows individuals to shop at their leisure, at 10 PM or at 6 AM according to individual needs and desires, a value not to be ignored in an era where two-worker families and single-parent
  households are common.
• Mail order makes specialization possible. For instance, while there may not be enough demand in one community to support a store that sells only carved wooden ducks, a catalog going to millions of people nationwide can easily support the plants and people who produce such carvings.
• Mail order allows local businesses to compete with huge national corporations. A hardware store, for example, can target consumers in a 1-mile radius with direct mail. Such small mailings may not make sense for a corporate giant, but they can produce excellent results at little cost for a local retailer.
• In practical terms, the Internet increasingly serves as a “front desk” where goods and services can be ordered — and then delivered (and sometimes returned) through the mailstream.

All in all, not bad for an industry that had it’s modern beginnings a little more than a century ago with Mr. Ward, Mr. Sears and a few stamps.

Technorati Tags: catalogs, choice, convenience, history, mail, Mail & Jobs, oppoortunity, options, postal, rural

America’s best marketing medium is universal, inexpensive, effective and efficient.

You don’t need a massive advertising budget, hundreds of outlets nationwide or a big-city address to become involved in direct mail marketing.

You can start small and have your program grow as your business expands. And if you already have an established business, direct mail can be used to enhance an existing marketing plan.

A direct mail program begins with a thorough analysis of the product or service being sold. For example, a company — we’ll call it Tonertronics — that sells small copiers for home offices is really marketing more than a device to make copies. Other values can be stressed to potential buyers, such as:

• Convenience — With your own machine, there’s no need to run down to a copy center at 8 pm just for one or two copies.
• Expense — The cost per copy is lower than a commercial copier might charge.
• Efficiency — If you have your own copier, you don’t have to wait for other people or worry that someone else will break the machine.
• Productivity — Instead of leaving home to make a copy, an individual can devote his or her time to income-generating activities.
• Warranty — A service agreement with an automatic loaner feature can assure that buyers will always have a machine available. Given a variety of values, the next step is to write and design an appropriate brochure.

Businesses, especially small or new organizations, can sometimes generate effective advertising material in-house, but organizations of all sizes commonly use direct response firms for such work. These companies can write copy, select paper and provide graphic design services to produce the look, tone and pitch most in tune with a potential market.

Once the brochure has been developed, the next step is to target the proper market.

You want to find that group of people who not only are most likely to have an interest in your product but also have the financial capacity to buy it.

To find the most likely buyers, Tonertronics can rent a list of home office workers from a specialized company with access to thousands of lists. List brokers have lists that can pinpoint home-based computer users, free-lance writers, public relations specialists and artists. Before renting such lists, however, the copier firm will want to make sure it is getting the best deal.

• Cost — Lists are generally rented on the basis of a charge per 1,000 names. The better the list, the higher the cost per name.
• Restrictions — Many lists are restricted so they cannot be used by those who compete with their owners, or by organizations and individuals offering items inconsistent with the goals of the list owner. A health magazine, for example, would be unlikely to rent its list to a firm that wants to market chewing tobacco by mail.
• Terms — Since lists are rented for limited periods of time and for a given number of mailings, it’s important to know how long and how often a list can be used.

Once a list has been acquired, the next step is to work with data processors who specialize in mailing list organization.

A data processor can take a basic mailing list and compare it against a national change-of-address database, a ZIP+4 directory, demographic information and other lists until the basic list is honed and perfected.

The list development process is crucially important to direct mailers. Every time a duplicate name is removed, or an unlikely contact is eliminated, the mailer pays less for printing, postage and handling.

To this point, there is a product, a mailer and a list. Now it’s time to insert materials into an envelope, label each envelope, and then apply the proper postage.

For small jobs, say several hundred to a thousand names, the work can often be done by hand through a small firm or a non-profit, sheltered workshop.

Inserting by hand is often impractical, however, especially when large volumes of mail are involved or a quick turn-around is important. Jobs of all sizes can be handled by full-service direct mail firms and direct response organizations that use automated equipment.

In addition to automation, larger firms sometimes offer another advantage as well: a full-time postal representative on site. In such cases, by having a postal employee at the mailer’s facility the Postal Service saves money and speeds processing because the delivery of millions of letters is streamlined.

Not all mailing firms are full-service operations, however. Some limit their activities to insertions, labeling and postage and in such cases customers will often hire a lettershop.

A lettershop is a specialized company that navigates through the postal system to find the best possible rates for clients. As an example, a lettershop might arrange direct transportation from a printer to the particular post office which offers the best rate. Direct delivery to an individual post office can eliminate many distribution layers as well as excess postal costs.

Once the mail goes out and orders come in, the mailer — in this case the copier company — must begin the delivery process. Mailers can fill their own orders, but many prefer a fulfillment service which takes the orders, assembles the ordered goods for shipment and then sends the merchandise to the customer.

Fulfillment services are so effective that a company can sell by mail and never handle its own products. Instead, products are sometimes sent from manufacturers directly to fulfillment firms and then from fulfillment companies to individual consumers. At the end of the direct-mail process, the copier company should have orders, hopefully at a lower cost per sale than otherwise might be
available with alternative media.

And if the company is really savvy, it will realize that it may have a new asset as well. The individuals who bought copiers might also want other products and services, information that a list manager may be able to market to other firms with an interest in home-office sales.

Technorati Tags: advertising, business, mail, marketing, mationwide, national, postal

It’s a fair question and here’s the answer: Imagine that you go to a bicycle shop. You can buy an assembled bicycle for $100 or you can buy the very same bicycle unassembled for $75. In other words, if you do some of the work the store has a lower cost and you pay less.

Postal rates work the same way. You can drop a letter into a corner mailbox with a handwritten address and no ZIP code. The Postal Service must send out a truck to pick up the letter, read the address, and add the ZIP code. Indeed, the Postal Service must send out a truck whether or not there’s any mail in the box.

But the Postal Service can reduce costs if the letter has a machine readable address that can be scanned automatically. The Postal Service can cut expenses if that address is required to have up-to-date delivery information including a special bar code. The Postal Service can save still more time and money if the letters are facing in one direction for easy processing and arranged in ZIP+4 order.

The Postal Service can save again when letters are bundled in specially-coded bags or ordered sequentially in “flats” to speed processing. Lastly, the Postal Service can also save money because it does not need to send a truck to a corner mailbox — to qualify for lower rates mailers must take their mail to a limited number of special postal facilities, not just neighborhood post offices.

Just like the bicycle shop, the Postal Service charges less when users do more of the work.

What would happen to stamp prices if we got rid of advertising mail?

Without advertising mail, stamp prices will soar. Here’s why:

The Postal Service delivers more than 212 billion pieces of mail each year to more than 148 million delivery points. A huge system must be in place to perform this work, a vast network that requires post offices, facilities, vehicles, and more than 765,000 employees.

If postal volume declines, costs will remain largely the same. For instance, if a home gets four pieces of mail instead of five each day, the Postal Service must still maintain its network of offices, facilities, vehicles and people. In other words, the Postal Service has fixed costs which are always in place.

The result is that if postal volume falls, costs must be divided among fewer pieces of mail, so each piece of mail must cost more.

Think of a pizza that sells for $10. If it’s divided into 12 slices, the cost per slice is 83 cents. If we take the same pizza and cut it into 8 splices, the cost is $1.25 per slice. Same pizza, but a higher cost per slice when there are fewer slices. The concept is the same with the mail.

But wait a minute. Isn’t the Postal Service subsidized with tax dollars?

No. The Postal Service has not received an operating subsidy since 1983 — at least 25 years ago. The Postal Service did receive one-time public funding to help with clean-up efforts after the 2001 anthrax attacks, special-purpose funding universally supported in response to acts of terrorism and murder.

How are stamp prices set?

In 1971 the Post Office Department, then a part of the cabinet, was converted into the Postal Service, a governmental agency. At the same time, a new entity, the Postal Rate Commission (PRC), was established. A new process to establish rates was also created, a process which typically required ten months of hearings, testimony and debate before the price of a stamp could be changed.

After reviewing testimony, research and reports from a wide range of sources, the PRC could accept a rate change from the Postal Service, modify it or deny it. The Board of Governors of the United States Postal Service then had the right to accept the PRC decision or to implement a rate increase. And, of course, no matter who decided what, the entire matter could be appealed to a court for further debate.

Over the years it became apparent that the rate-making system set-up in 1971 did not work in the Internet era. While competitors could change pricing overnight or offer a new service at anytime, the Postal Service could not. At the same time, the need for an efficient postal system continued to grow as additional delivery points were added each year and volume increased.

In December 2006, the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act was passed by the Congress and with a new law the rate system changed radically.

What happened? In basic terms, the system now works like this:

• The Postal Service can now set its own rates, however the new rates cannot exceed the rate of inflation and rates may be not be set for the purpose of earning a profit. Instead, the Postal Service may only charge enough to more-or-less break even.
• The public and the Postal Rate Commission — now called the Postal Regulatory Commission — have 45 days to comment before any proposed rate changes go into effect.
• The PRC has the authority to assure that no class of mail subsidizes another. In other words, the prices of First Class mail cannot be raised so that those who send parcels through the postal system pay less — and vice versa. There are elaborate economic models used to determine the costs for each type of mail.
• The Postal Service can conduct market tests of experimental products, typically for not more than 24 months.

Why go through so much hassle just to change the price of a stamp?

Because the mailstream is a basic pillar of the U.S. economy.

“The Postal Service,” says the Washington Post, “has about 738,000 employees, relies on revenue from operations rather than taxpayer funding and is one of few federal bureaucracies with which most Americans have regular contact. It is at the center of a $900 billion mailing industry, which employs 9 million people in such businesses as direct mail, paper manufacturers and printers.” (See: Postal Services Finances Bleak, March 23, 2004)

Over the years the process of changing the price of stamps has been costly, time-consuming, complex and combative. But by at least one measure the system worked very well: Today the U.S. has the most successful postal system in the world — more than 45 percent of all mail worldwide goes through the U.S. Postal Service.

Resources:

• Landmarks In Postal History
• How Mail Order Changed America’s Shopping Habits
• History of Postcard Rates
• History of First-Class Stamp Rates

Technorati Tags: mail, postal, Postal Regulatory Commission, rate

At the center of America’s new media habits is a basic conflict between time and numbers. As a nation, we work longer and vacation less then most other countries. The result for many of us is less time to read, watch or listen.

But although we have less time for the media, the number of media outlets that compete for our attention is growing.

The three major TV networks that dominated television for the past 40 years must now compete with a fourth network as well as huge numbers of cable channels.

The number of magazine titles has greatly increased in the past decade while total industry circulation has grown slowly.

Major big-city dailies now face strong competition from specialized publications such as shoppers, city magazines, suburban papers, entertainment guides and local real estate advertisers.

Consumers are spending more time online — time that in the past might have been spent with traditional media.

What we’re seeing today is a wholesale shift in media preferences. Major metropolitan dailies are not getting the market penetration that used to make them so strong. The result is that they are less and less effective as advertising platforms. Daily newspaper circulation, as one example, has plummeted. According to the Newspaper Association of America morning and evening circulation in 2006 stood at 52.329 million copies — down from 63.340 million in 1984.

The alternative to broad-based, shotgun promotions is targeting, a strategy often represented by advertising mail marketing.

Why? When you use advertising mail there’s a sense of individual contact. There is also a feeling of immediacy, that here is something of value which should be considered now.

And while radio and TV are powerful mediums, even if you have the world’s best commercial it doesn’t count for much if a listener or viewer is out of the room. And once radio and TV ads are finished, they’re finished forever because few people tape even a tiny portion of the many programs broadcast each week — and some recording systems are programmed to ignore ads.

The need for targeting is largely behind the move to make individual media outlets reach more precisely-defined audiences. As an example, instead of a large daily paper with a single editorial package for every area in a major city, a newspaper may instead publish zoned editions and specialized sections.

In similar fashion, generalized radio programming has given way to stations that feature only one type of fare. Stations that offer top-40 music compete for a different audience then those which offer religious programming or all-talk formats.

Magazines, too, are becoming increasingly specialized as new publications spring up to serve individual market niches. As for television, segmentation is responsible for the growth of all sports, all news and all music cable outlets as well as specialized channels for children, investors and movie watchers.

To make matters more complex, we not only have papers fighting papers and TV channels battling with other TV channels, we also have across-the-board competition.

Consider the dilemma of a company that produces a two-seat sports car. Does it advertise in local newspapers, magazines that cover the auto industry, or does it use advertising mail to reach individuals who currently own sports cars and live in high-income residential neighborhoods?

Advertisers today want to reach specific publics. The availability of consumer and business data, useful software, computers and market segmentation allow advertisers to target their messages with great precision. And when messages are carefully targeted, it becomes possible to obtain higher response rates and lower costs per sale.

Targeting offers other benefits as well.

• First, with careful targeting consumers are likely to receive fewer irrelevant ads. They will increasingly receive only those ads which most closely relate to their buying patterns and demographics.

• Second, in an age of heightened environmental awareness, it’s often wasteful to broadly advertise when targeting can lower costs and yet produce the same number of sales. More efficiency translates into less need for paper, energy and landfill space, benefits that help everyone.

• Third, advertising mail is the most democratic medium of all. You don’t need a $10 million campaign to start an advertising mail program. Individuals, small businesses, charities and growing companies can all find advertising mail programs that fit their budgets.

The new emphasis on targeting can be seen in advertising sales. For example, between fiscal 1997 and 2007, ad mail volume increased from 77.3 billion pieces to 103.5 billion pieces — a huge increase, and one that is especially interesting because it parallels the growth of online communication.

What the future will bring is an open question. Tough economic times in the late 1980s and early 1990s slowed retail, employment and real estate advertising — the traditional mainstays of big-city newspapers. Conversely, as the economy improves newspaper advertising volume should rise.

As for advertising mail, it is increasingly popular both with advertisers and the public. According to Robert Coen, Senior Vice President, Director of Forecasting at Universal McCann, advertisers will spend almost $64 billion on direct mail in 2008. That’s more than advertisers will spend on newspapers and about one out of every five advertising dollars spent for all media.

Technorati Tags: advertising, efficiency, efficient, mail, postal, targeting, technology

Mail spending rose 4.0 percent in 2007 to $60.998 billion, according to Coen, senior vice president, director of forecasting with Universal McCann, one of the largest advertising agencies in the world,

In the December 2007 issue of his “Insider’s Report,” Coen
said that advertisers spent $283.88 billion on all media in 2007, a .07 percent increase over 2006. In effect, mail continues to represent one of every five dollars spent by U.S. advertisers.

Coen said Internet advertising increased 20 percent in 2007 to $10.92 billion — about one-sixth of the dollars spent with the mailstream. Newspapers took in $42.94 billion, down substantially from the $47.71 billion spent in 2006.

For 2008 Coen estimates that total ad spending will grow by 3.7 percent to $294.38 billion. expenditures for ad mail will grow at an even stronger pace. Coen predicts that for 2008 advertisers will spend $63.73 billion advertising through the mailstream, up 4.5 percent over 2007.

The fact is that advertisers will spend more money on direct mail than on promotions through radio, newspapers, magazines, network television, cable TV or the Internet.

“Madison Avenue,” says Business Week, “came of age as a content supplier to mass media and remains much better versed in making 30-second TV spots than in exploiting the interactive intricacies of the Internet. What is more, in the same way that network TV’s dominance of media is eroding, advertising’s dominance of marketing is diminishing. Marketers are increasing their spending on telemarketing, direct mail, e-mail, in-store displays, and other forms of closely targeted, nonmedia spending.” (See: “The Vanishing Mass Market,” July 12, 2004)

For advertisers, there is a use and value for all forms of media. Each media option offers something unique, and in a country with an $11 trillion economy everyone benefits when there are numerous media choices.

But why the interest in mail?

Advertisers today want to reach specific publics. For instance, a local pizza store may want to reach everyone in a given ZIP code while a company that sells ski boots may only want to reach households with a given income level in communities where snow is common six months a years.

The availability of consumer and business data, advanced software, computers and market segmentation allow advertisers to target their messages with great precision. And when messages are carefully targeted, it becomes possible to obtain higher response rates and lower costs per sale. In other words, mail is popular because advertisers get strong returns for each dollar they spend.

Targeting offers other benefits as well.

• With careful targeting consumers are likely to receive fewer irrelevant ads. They will increasingly receive only those ads which most closely relate to their buying patterns and preferences.
• In an age of heightened environmental awareness, targeting can lower material consumption and yet produce the same number of sales.
• Advertising mail is the most democratic medium of all. You don’t need a $10 million campaign to start an advertising mail program. Individuals, small businesses, charities and growing companies can all find advertising mail programs that fit their budgets — and the same is also true for unions, political campaigners, environmental groups, consumer organizations and religious congregations.

Does ad mail targeting work? You bet.

According to the Postal Service consumers read 78 percent of the advertising mail they receive, nearly 10 percent respond to offers, and 21 percent bring coupons and ad mail with them when they shop.

The new emphasis on targeting can be seen in ad mail volume:

For example, between fiscal 1996 and 2007, ad mail volume increased from 71.7 billion pieces to 103.516 billion – a huge gain, especially given the growth of email and online communication in general.

What is the future of ad mail? Given universal delivery six days a week as well as competitive pricing, ad mail offers much potential. After all, how else can you securely reach more than 148 million physical addresses?

Technorati Tags: advertising, billion, Coen, Internet, mail, Mail & Jobs, newspapers, postal

When asked if Greenpeace was contributing to the nation’s environmental problems because the group uses direct mail, Peter Bahouth, a former Greenpeace executive director, once told ABC News that “accusing environmental groups of paper pollution is a bit like saying that we need to get the ambulances off the street because they’re loud.”

You can check for yourself by looking at the IRS Form 990 which most non-profit organizations are required to make available to the public. More than 1.5 million non-profit groups are listed at GuideStar.org, and many post their Form 990s for public review.

Why do major ecology groups use the mails? Just take a look at mail and the waste stream.

How much garbage is produced each year?

According to the latest-available figures from the Environmental Protection Agency, the United States produces 13 billion tons of nonhazardous solid waste each year. The EPA calls this material Subtitle D waste. (See: RCRA: Reducing Risk From Waste, EPA, EPA530-K-97-004, September 1997, page 5.)

Thirteen billion tons in the mid-1990s! That seems impossible. Is there an environmental organization with similar numbers?

Yes. As an example, Greenpeace has research showing that we produced 11.3 billion tons of Subtitle D waste in the 1980s.

The United States,” says the Natural Resources Defense Council, “produces between 12 and 14 billion tons of waste annually. This includes mining waste, oil and gas waste, agricultural waste, hazardous waste, food-processing residues, demolition debris, incinerator ash, and medical waste, in addition to municipal waste. The management of most of this waste is not regulated by U.S. federal law — it is exempt — and of the total, municipal waste accounts for only about 210 million tons.” (See: Too Good To Throw Away: Recycling’s Proven Record, Chapter 2)

The problem, of course, is that more recent Subtitle D figures are needed to better understand waste issues, information which the EPA has not made available to the public.

What is municipal solid waste?

In general terms, “municipal solid waste” or “MSW” can be seen as a limited number of items which are part of the overall waste stream. As the EPA explains: “our trash is made up of the things we commonly use and then throw away. These materials range from packaging, food scraps, and grass clippings to old sofas, computers, tires, and refrigerators. It does not include industrial, hazardous, or construction waste.” (See: Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2006, EPA, page 2)

Does MSW equal all the stuff that goes into local landfills?

No. Although omitted from the 2006 MSW report, the EPA has plainly stated in the past that “some people assume that ‘municipal solid waste’ must include everything that is landfilled in Subtitle D landfills,” but this is NOT correct. (See: Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2005, EPA, page 25)

“It has been common practice,” says the EPA, “to landfill wastes such as municipal sludges, nonhazardous industrial wastes, residue from automobile salvage operations, and construction and demolition debris along with MSW.” (See: Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2005, EPA, page 25)

But wait a minute. Doesn’t the EPA say that the number of landfills has declined substantially during the past decade?

The EPA says two things: “while the number of U.S. landfills has steadily declined over the years, the average landfill size has increased.” It also states that “since 1990, the total volume of MSW going to landfills dropped by 4 million tons, from 142.3 million to 138.2 million tons in 2006.” (See: Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2006, EPA, page 8)

In other words, older, smaller and less ecology-secure landfills are being replaced with a small number of larger sites which can benefit from new technologies and better management.

While the volume of MSW material thrown away has dropped by 4 millions tons per year, the amount of available landfill capacity is actually growing. As The New York Times has reported:

“It became clear in the early 1990’s that there was a glut of disposal space, not the widely believed shortage that had drawn headlines in the 1980’s.

“Although many town dumps had closed, they were replaced by fewer, but huge, regional ones. That sent dumping prices plunging in many areas in the early 1990’s and led to a long slump in the waste industry.

“Since then the industry and its followers have been relying on time — about 330 million tons of trash went into landfills in the United States last year alone, according to Solid Waste Digest, a trade publication — to fill up some of those holes, erase the glut and send disposal prices skyward again. Instead, dump capacity has kept growing, and rapidly, even as only a few new dumps were built.” (See: Rumors of a Shortage of Dump Space Were Greatly Exaggerated, August 12, 2005)

Where can I get more information regarding the landfill glut?

Press here to see our complete report.

How much MSW is there?

While the overall waste stream consists of some 13 billion tons of nonhazardous materials, MSW is just a small fraction of that amount. In 2006 we generated 251.3 million tons of MSW — 1.93 percent of the non-hazardous waste stream. (See: Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2006, EPA, page 7)

Do 251.3 million tons of MSW go into landfills?

No. MSW in 2005 included 251.3 million tons of material before recycling, composting and energy recovery. The amount left to landfill was 138.2 million tons. (See: Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2006, EPA, page 9)

Aren’t we landfilling more MSW than ever?

No. MSW generation is down. Recycling and composting are both up. The result is that MSW landfill use has declined.

For instance, the EPA reports that we landfilled 138.2 million tons of material in 2006 — that’s down from 142.3 million tons in 1990 — a time when we had 50 million fewer people. (See: Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2006, EPA, page 9)

How long will it take to pack our landfills with MSW?

More than MSW goes into landfills, so the issue involves a wider array of waste than MSW by itself. No less important, we are now adding landfill capacity faster than we are using it.

The New York Times has reported that between 2001 and 2005 the nation’s three largest trash collectors — Waste Management, Allied Waste Industries and Republic Services — “buried 882 million tons of waste. But the remaining permitted capacity of their combined 410 dumps did not shrink. It expanded over those four years by more than one billion tons. The three companies now expect expansions of another 1.8 billion tons. At that level, their combined capacity could handle the nation’s trash sent to dumps for about 26 years.” (See: Rumors of a Shortage of Dump Space Were Greatly Exaggerated, August 12, 2005)

Not only are the three largest private companies increasing landfill capacity, the same is also true for other private and public facilities. This is happening because we are landfilling less and also because landfill technology is improving — we can get 30 percent more stuff into a given amount of landfill space than in the past, according to the Times. Equally important in the case of paper-based materials, scrap that used to be landfilled is now being exported to China. In fact, in 2007 the Chinese bought scrap paper worth more than $2 billion from the U.S.

Will we soon run out of landfill capacity?

No. In their most-recent annual reports, the three major collection and disposal companies told the Securities and Exchange Commission that they have enough landfill capacity today to last for decades — without further expansion.

We will develop new landfill sites using the latest and best environmental techniques — certainly as good as the technologies we use today and no doubt better. However, efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle should continue not only because they limit landfill needs, but because such practices are inherently good for the environment and for us all.

If annual Subtitle D waste totals 13 billion tons or more, why have we not run out of landfill space already?

Because much of the “waste stream” is nonhazardous industrial and production water, mining debris and agricultural waste that is left in place and not landfilled.

Is there any source which shows billions of tons of Subtitle D waste broken into categories by weight?

Yes. An official 1988 EPA study entitled, “Report to Congress: Solid Waste Disposal in the United States,” (EPA/530-SW-88-011) details Subtitle D categories. On page 11, Volume 1, is a table showing more than 11,387 billion tons of waste, including 158 million tons of MSW. In 1988, of course, we had a population of just 244,498,982 people, far fewer than today.

How much MSW is in the form of paper products?

Paper and paperboard products amounted to 85.29 million tons in 2006. However, paper-based products have traditionally had high recovery levels. While the general recovery rate for MSW is 32.5 percent, the recovery rate for paper-based products is 51.6 percent — meaning 44.02 million tons were diverted from America’s landfills. (See: 2006 MSW Characterization Data Tables, EPA, table 2)

Given that we live in the Internet era, wouldn’t it make sense avoid all landfill issues and just use email? After all, with email there’s no environmental impact.

The presumption that email has no environmental impact is simply untrue.

According to the Scientific American, “e-mailing, number crunching and Web searches in the U.S. consumed as much as 61 billion kilowatt-hours last year, or 1.5 percent of the nation’s electricity — half of which comes from coal. In 2005 the computers of the world ate up 123 billion kilowatthours of energy, a number that will double by 2010 if present trends continue, according to Jonathan Koomey, a staff scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. As a result, the power bill to run a computer over its lifetime will surpass the cost of buying the machine in the first place — giving Internet and computer companies a business reason to cut energy costs, as well as an environmental one.” (See: Digital Diet, April 2008)

Not only is energy consumption a concern, so is landfill usage. PC Magazine offers these examples:

___”A pile of our obsolete computers could make a 22-story mountain that covers the entire 472 square miles of the city of Los Angeles.”

___”Three billion units of consumer electronics potentially will become scrap between 2003 and 2010. That’s nine gadgets thrown away for every person currently living in the U.S.”

___”As little as 0.014 gram of mercury is enough to contaminate the fish in a 20-acre lake. The 300 million computers that have already been discarded contain enough mercury (about 0.5 gram each) to poison the Great Lakes eight times over.”

___”Nearly every large electronics and semiconductor manufacturer that began operations in the 1970s or earlier has an EPA Superfund site (deemed the worst toxic waste sites) in its history. Forty-one million Americans live within 4 miles of one of these sites.” (See: Measuring America’s E-Waste, March 17, 2008)

The important point, of course, is that email offers great value and utility, but email — like every other product and service — is not environmentally cost-free.

How much advertising mail is included within MSW?

Advertising mail totals 5.89 million tons before recycling. However, 2.28 million tons is recycled, a recovery rate of 38.7%. (See: 2006 MSW Characterization Data Tables, EPA, table 4)

So how much of the waste stream is advertising mail?

Using EPA data, as a Nation we have 13 billion tons of Subtitle D waste. We also have — before recovery — 5.89 million tons of advertising mail. In the worst case, advertising mail thus represents 0.000453 of the waste stream — about 5/10,000ths. After recycling, of course, the percentage is even lower.

How can we increase the percentage of advertising mail saved by recycling?

We now have thousands of local governments that collect paper — but not all paper. We would have significantly-higher recovery rates for ad mail if local communities collected all paper and not just newspapers. Given the worldwide demand for U.S. scrap paper, such enhanced collections would keep more material away from landfills while at the same time bringing additional money into the U.S.

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When a local hardware store, pizza shop, dentist or dry cleaner wants to reach the neighborhood they turn to shopper publications. When a small business with several local outlets needs to have different messages for different communities, they turn to shopper publications. And when small businesses want to avoid monopoly advertising costs, they turn to shopper publications.

Shopper publications — an advertising medium that’s effective, targeted, local, well-established and less expensive than the competition.

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But if it’s fair to raise questions about landfill capacity then it’s equally fair to provide some answers. Are we running out of landfill space? A balanced postal system with a vision of the future may be surprising.

According to much-quoted statistics from the Environmental Protection Agency, the number of landfills in the United States dropped from 7,924 in 1988 to 1,754 in 2006.

Source: Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2006, EPA, page 8)

The EPA chart plainly shows that the number of landfills in the United States has fallen 77 percent since 1988. Given such a decline, the natural assumption is that a massive reduction in numbers must also mean that national landfill capacity has shrunk.

The problem: Such assumptions are not true.

The EPA states in its 2006 MSW study that “while the number of U.S. landfills has steadily declined over the years, the average landfill size has increased. At the national level, landfill capacity appears to be sufficient, although it is limited in some areas.” In fact, the EPA says that “since 1990, the total volume of MSW going to landfills dropped by 4 million tons, from 142.3 million to 138.2 million tons in 2006.” This is a remarkable figure when you consider that the U.S. population between 1990 and 2006 increased by more than 50 million people.

Our landfill supply nationwide has not merely increased, we have a vast overabundance. While the number of landfills has declined, the measure that counts — landfill capacity — has increased enormously.

Because we have a growing volume of nationwide landfill capacity, disposal costs are low. This is the best possible evidence that a landfill shortage does not exist and it’s also good news for local homeowners: If there really was a landfill shortage then local garbage disposal fees would soar.

Why do we have a landfill glut? Four reasons stand out:

1. Consolidation
2. Recovery
3. Technology
4. China: The New Market

Consolidation

The best example of changing landfill numbers occurred in Wisconsin. Between 1986 and 1991 the state closed 850 landfills, opened nine new ones and expanded 12 existing sites. The result? Landfill capacity in the state increased by 44.5 million cubic yards. (See: Landfill Capacity in North America, 1991 Update, National Solid Waste Management Association, table 3, page 4)

You can see where this leads. A scary headline will say “Wisconsin Lost 850 Landfills” but that’s plainly not the whole story. A more sensible headline would say “Wisconsin Lost 850 Landfills, Capacity Grew.”

The Wisconsin example explains why landfill numbers are falling. Older, less efficient and less environmentally secure landfills are being replaced by larger, more efficient and more environmentally safe facilities. In other words, if you replace 20 thimbles of milk with a single one-gallon jug, it doesn’t mean you can’t store more milk.

“It became clear in the early 1990’s that there was a glut of disposal space, not the widely believed shortage that had drawn headlines in the 1980’s,” says The New York Times.

“Although many town dumps had closed, they were replaced by fewer, but huge, regional ones. That sent dumping prices plunging in many areas in the early 1990’s and led to a long slump in the waste industry.

“Since then,” says the Times, “the industry and its followers have been relying on time — about 330 million tons of trash went into landfills in the United States last year alone, according to Solid Waste Digest, a trade publication — to fill up some of those holes, erase the glut and send disposal prices skyward again. Instead, dump capacity has kept growing, and rapidly, even as only a few new dumps were built.” (See: Rumors of a Shortage of Dump Space Were Greatly Exaggerated, August 12, 2005)

Three companies — Waste Management, Allied Waste Industries and Republic Services — collect more than half the nation’s trash. Rather than running out of landfill space, they have sufficient capacity to operate for decades assuming no further expansion of existing sites, no additional sites and no benefit from improved technology.

• As of December 31, 2006, says Waste Management in its 2006 Annual Report, “the weighted average remaining landfill life for all of our owned or operated landfills is approximately 28 years.” This is an increase of one year when compared with the 2004 Annual Report.
• “”We have a network of 161 owned or operated active landfills with remaining operating lives ranging from 1 to over 150 years,” according to the 2007 Allied Waste Industries annual report. “Based on available capacity using annual volumes, the average remaining life of our landfills approximates 38 years.”
• Republic Services said in its 2007 Annual Report that it “owned or operated 58 landfills, which had 9,707 permitted acres and total available permitted and probable expansion disposal capacity of approximately 1.7 billion in-place cubic yards. It said “the average estimated remaining life of all of our landfills is 27 years.”

In fact, however, it would be short-sighted to assume that there will be no further capacity increases. As the Times points out, “in the last four years the three companies have “buried 882 million tons of waste. But the remaining permitted capacity of their combined 410 dumps did not shrink. It expanded over those four years by more than one billion tons. The three companies now expect expansions of another 1.8 billion tons.”

Recovery

During the past five decades American attitudes toward recycling and ecology radically changed. Concerns regarding green issues — once largely restricted to environmental activists — entered the mainstream and impacted such issues as automobile mileage, global warming and “smart” zoning.

Environmental concerns also influenced landfill policies and materials recovery. Figures from the EPA reflect a sea change in national thinking.

What we now know is that economic and population growth are both possible even as landfill usage declines. Figures from the 45-year period between 1960 and 2006 show a dramatic change in the way we reduce, re-use and recycle:

• The generation of municipal solid waste almost tripled from 88.1 million tons to 251.3 million tons.
• The volume of material landfilled amounted to 138.2 million tons in 2006 — that’s LESS than the volume of MSW landfilled in 1990 when the country had 50 million fewer people.
• The amount of material landfilled per day per person in 2006 was less than the amount landfilled in 2000.

Combine reduced landfill usage with increased landfill capacity and the result is diminished demand for landfill space nationwide.

The bottom line? Despite a vast population increase, nationwide landfill use is down and materials recovery is up. Seen another way, a larger population is sending less to landfills. Efforts to reduce, reuse and recycle are paying off. No less important, with improved technology and increasing collection efforts, even better results may be possible.

Source: Municipal Solid Waste Generation, Recycling, and Disposal
in the United States: Facts and Figures for 2006, EPA, page 9

Technology

We not only have vastly larger landfills, we are not only putting less in them, we also use them more efficiently. A given amount of landfill space will hold about 30 percent more content today than in the past.

Waste companies and municipalities, says the Times are “burying trash more tightly, so that each ton takes up less space, increasingly using giant 59-ton compacting machines guided by global positioning systems that show the operator when he has rolled over a section of the dump enough times. They cover trash at the end of the day, to keep it from blowing away, with tarps or foam or lawn clippings instead of the thick layers of soil that formerly ate up dump capacity.” (See: Rumors of a Shortage of Dump Space Were Greatly Exaggerated, August 12, 2005)

We don’t know what benefits technology will provide in the future, but what we do know is this: To date landfill usage has become substantially more efficient due to better management practices. It is entirely possible and reasonable that in the future we will also see improved landfill efficiency, thus limiting the need for additional landfill capacity.

China: The New Market

The richest woman in China, Zhang Yin, is worth $3.4 billion. But unlike other Chinese entrepreneurs who have made their money by exporting to the West, Zhang built her fortune another way: She’s the “queen of waste paper,” China’s largest importer of scrap paper. (See: China’s Richest Woman: From Waste To Wealth, China Daily, November 20, 2006)

For many years there has been a growing and massive trade imbalance with China. For the period from 2000 through 2007, our balance of trade with China showed a loss of more than $1.2 trillion.

Not only is the trade imbalance growing, it is likely to increase as China begins to export big-ticket items such as cars, trucks and planes.

All figures are in millions of U.S. dollars.
Source: Foreign Trade Statistics, U.S. Census Bureau

There is, however, one area where the U.S. is a major exporter to China. According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, “the United States shipped 7.7 million metric tons of waste paper to China in 2005.” Between 1995 and 2005, the USITC reports that “Chinese imports of wood pulp and waste paper from the United States increased by 500 percent over the same period, while imports of finished paper declined by 12 percent.” (See: The Effects of Increasing Chinese Demand on Global Commodity Markets, pages 1-4 and 4-14)

In the U.S. we measure large weights in terms of tons, however the measure used for waste paper exports by the USITC is metric tons. While a single U.S. ton weighs 2,000 pounds, a metric ton is substantially larger, weighing in at 2,204.62 pounds. In effect, the 7.7 million metric tons of scrap paper sent to China in 2005 is actually equal to 8,487,787 U.S. tons.

The huge and growing Chinese market for U.S. scrap paper created by Zhang and others has important landfill implications in the United States. The waste paper shipped to China each year for recycling into paper, cartons and other products represents nearly 8.5 million tons of paper that will not be deposited in American landfills. Instead, it will now bring needed dollars back to the U.S.

What is the value of the scrap paper we send to China? According to the U.S. International Trade Administration, U.S. scrap paper exports to China were worth almost $1.5 billion in 2007.

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