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I picked up a story today on the eco-warrior US organisation, ForestEthics, who are running a 'Do Not Mail' campaign to stop so-called junk mail. The campaign is really just a petition, which currently lists "nearly 20,000" petitioners. ForestEthics explain that unwanted mail is making a significant impact on our environment, citing the number of trees used to produce the 100 billion mail pieces across the US and other eco-stats.
Now, I'm certainly no eco-warrior, but I do care for the environment. Having said that, I don't agree with ForestEthics approach to what is, apparently a propaganda-style campaign, intended to pour guilt on un-informed consumers. For example, ForestEthics state that "the Canadian Boreal Forest is logged at a rate of two acres a minute to produce paper products". However, they conveniently fail to mention that Canada is a global leader in sustainable forest management and has a deforestation rate of zero.
ForestEthics also fail to consider the impact on the US economy, which is already in bad shape. Take away 100 billion mail pieces a year and that's going to severely impact paper mills, printers and even the struggling US postal system. Direct mail is responsible for nearly 20,000 jobs in New Hampshire alone.
Instead of an unhelpful petition, I think ForestEthics should focus their efforts on environmental stewardship programs and ways to better enable consumers to manage their mail. Whatever ForestEthics decide to do, let's hope they make a better job of it than their petition Web site www.DoNotMail.org, which at time of writing, is down.
Posted on Wednesday, 12 March 2008 at 10:37 PM | TrackBack: http://www.veedeepee.com/cgi-bin/mt-tb.cgi/100