Here at the San Francisco ForestEthics office, we’re still recovering from last week’s fantastic annual event, 100 Million Trees: A Party to Stop Junk Mail, held at the W Hotel San Francisco. ForestEthics friends, supports, and grassroots activists came together to celebrate the millions of acres of forests that ForestEthics has protected to date (that’s more than 65 million acres and counting!), while toasting the momentum we’ve built over the last 18 months on one of our flagship campaigns: Do Not Mail.
Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi receives his award
It’s so rare that we take time out of our busy schedules to celebrate our victories and honor our leaders. That’s why it was such an honor to present San Francisco Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi with our first annual In the Company of Giants Award for his leadership in sponsoring the nation’s first resolution calling for a state and national Do Not Mail Registry. Accepting the award, Ross gave a characteristically rousing speech about junk mail’s unacceptable impacts on our fragile environment, and his commitment to lead San Francisco, the state of California, and the nation towards a more common sense relationship with the planet.
The event was hosted by a great friend to forests everywhere, Annabelle Gurwitch–author, Planet Green TV personality, and woman of wit and boundless energy.
And once again, bringing the evening together, ForestEthics Executive Director Todd Paglia, spoke of the broader ForestEthics vision: a world where individuals, businesses, and industry work together to protect the planet.
I had a great time catching up with friends and allies, meeting people who are passionate about forests and climate, and sipping too much moderate amounts of delicious wine. We are now recharged and refreshed–ready to take Do Not Mail’s resolution strategy to the next level.
Thanks to everyone who worked to make the event–and the campaign–a success!
Since 2007, ForestEthics has teamed up with Dogwood Alliance to create the Green Grades office supply report card to inform American consumers and large purchasers of office supply products about which companies’ paper practices safeguard the environment and the world’s forests.
Drawing from a company survey and our own research, the report card rates the office companies on six forest-related environmental measures, including the extent to which they avoid selling paper from Endangered Forests and other controversial sources, and to which they instead promote paper from certified well-managed forests and recycled
fiber. You can see the full press release here >>
Some of the following companies get A’s, some companies fail, and some fall in between: Amazon.com, FedEx Office, Office Depot, OfficeMax, PaperlinX, Staples, Target, Unisource, United Stationers, WalMart, and Xpedx. Get the full story on the performance of these companies here.
You can also view and/or print the report card below. Use the zoom or toggle full screen tool for easier viewing.
Today, in the shadow of Seattle’s Space Needle, Maggie Hussey became the 100,000th person to sign the petition calling for a national Do Not Mail Registry. Maggie signed after a member of Forest Ethics’ outreach team delivered their patented smooth junk mail info-rap. It’s irresistible.
It’s fitting that this milestone signature happened in Seattle, recently named the greenest large city in the country and home to our next push for a Do Not Mail Resolution! San Francisco was first in March, and now it’s Seattle’s turn, with the city hopefully giving way to a Do Not Mail registry for Washington state and beyond!
I was going to propose a toast, but let’s save it for later. For now, we’ll just say that it’s great to be at six figures, and it’s great to be in Seattle. Onward and upward….
On Monday we linked to a poll on Examiner.com that asked the question “Do we need a Do Not Mail Registry?” I voted, wrote up the blog post, and then basically forgot about it. It’s just an online poll, and online polls are less likely to reflect public opinion than to reflect who linked to it and encouraged people to vote a certain way. Like us!
So I was amused to check it today (left) and see that the current result is almost exactly the same as the much more authoritative 2007 Zogby poll, which showed that 89% of Americans support Do Not Mail.
The junk mail industry can’t actually convince Americans not to support Do Not Mail, but I’m somewhat surprised that they haven’t tried to take advantage of easily-manipulated online polls like this.
Take a minute to vote in this poll asking whether or not the U.S. should establish a national Do Not Mail Registry. Of course, we already know the vast majority of Americans support the creation of a registry (a 2007 Zogby poll that found a whopping 89% of Americans support the creation of a registry), but it’s a fun little internets activity nonetheless.
The article’s author, Jack Dunning, is a former junk mail consultant turned dedicated watchdog of an industry that in his opinion runs roughshod over our privacy and the environment. Junk mailers have a tough time getting their misinformation past him.
He’s been documenting the absurdity on his blog, the Dunning Report, for quite awhile but at the moment he also has a steady gig at Examiner.com.
We met Chris Hoofnagle back in March when he showed up at the San Francisco Do Not Mail Resolution hearing, and proceeded to drop serious knowledge about consumer rights as it pertains to Do Not Mail, and to Do Not Call before it.
Turns out Chris’ testimony was just the tip of the iceberg as far as his overall expertise in matters of privacy law and consumer rights. Denialism, the blog to which he and his brother Mark contribute, is chock full of expert knowledge delivered in an easy, conversational manner. And it’s all about you the consumer and you the citizen.
It’s easy to feel overwhelmed by all the various shades of shadiness in our mail, on the phone, and online, but when I see vigilant minds like this winning with facts, reason, and a healthy sarcasm, I gotta say– I feel like I can take it on, too.
These guys are like the Batman and Spider-man of consumer advocacy bloggery!
But even Batman will tell Commissioner Gordon that Gotham needs something a little more comprehensive and enforceable than one dude with a cape running around the city trying to take on every bad guy.
There, you made me say it: Batman supports Do Not Mail. I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone, but there it is.
So check out: Denialism. We’re adding it to our blogroll today.
Be ready to pay $5 – $10 per stamp when business mail is outlawed.
Question: who’s outlawing business mail?
Joe may truly be under the impression that business mail is at risk of becoming illegal, and if so, it’s probably because the junk mail industry loves to spread the rumor that somebody wants to make junk mail illegal. Check junk mail’s chief lobbyists at Mail Moves America:
Mail Moves America has been making progress the public debate against extremists determined to ban advertising mail at the expense of thousands of jobs.
Who are these extremists? ForestEthics has been working on junk mail for quite a while, and I couldn’t name a single group that is calling for a ban on junk mail.
As for us, ForestEthics’ Do Not Mail campaign seeks to give Americans the enforceable choice to opt-out of receiving junk mail. Anyone who wants to keep receiving it is free to do so.
The junk mail industry’s characterization of this as a ban isn’t honest, but it’s understandable: if they were to acknowledge that all we’re seeking is the simple choice not to receive junk mail, then it would be clear that our side is far more reasonable and less extreme than the industry, which is fixated on delivering junk mail at up to 400% of what consumers are actually demanding.
89% of Americans support the creation of a Do Not Mail Registry, but if you lied to them and said that Do Not Mail seeks to outlaw junk mail, support would probably be much lower.
And that’s their strategy: misrepresenting the facts. I could easily turn this into a joke about how junk mail quite often misrepresents things, but I’ll refrain from piling on for now.
An anecdotal follow-up on Corinne’s post about Minnesota’s efforts to educate its citizens about junk mail scams…
I got a call last week from a pleasant, if slightly distraught, elderly woman named Earline in Sonoma County, CA. She was concerned about a suspicious mailing she’d received from something calling itself the “Auto Warranty Division”. In bold print suggesting dire urgency, the notice informed her that her auto insurance was due to expire, and that she must act quickly to extend her coverage.
But Earline doesn’t own a car. Likewise, she has no insurance on her non-existent car.
Earline called the local police station, who recommended that she call ForestEthics. It isn’t the first time we’ve been recommended by law enforcement, but while we’re flattered to be recognized for keeping tabs on the junk mail industry, we would prefer to see the police investigate suspicious activity like this. Earline probably isn’t the only person in her community to receive this mailing.
In particular, the elderly are at risk. Senior citizens are often hard-pressed to distinguish legitimately important mail from junk mail that merely screams “URGENT“. Older people also came of age during a time when they weren’t as likely to be preyed upon by mail.
As various sites have already documented, this service is quite possibly fraudulent. Yet it and many other less-than-forthright businesses presumably benefit from the same cheap pre-sorted rates as other direct mail.
The phone number listed on Earline’s mailing was 866-538-1212. I just got an automated message identifying the listing as “Automotive Financial Consultants”. Give them a call. Maybe you can get someone on the line. Ask them why they’d mail a notice warning of expiring auto insurance to a person with no car.
The Minnesota Attorney General’s office recently produced a resource guide for seniors who find themselves especially at risk from fraudulent junk mail schemes.
From the guide:
Are you tired of digging through piles of junk mail to find bills, bank statements, and letters? Are you constantly interrupted by telemarketing calls? If you are, you are not alone. It is estimated that nearly four million tons of junk mail is sent every year – half of which is never opened. The Attorney General’s Office offers the following tips for reducing junk mail and telemarketing calls.
Yes, and yes! We are tired of losing actual mail—important mail—in endless piles of junk mail. But after listing several tools that are currently available to help reduce junk mail (including the Direct Mail Association’s own opt-out system), the guide includes this disclaimer:
Your name should be removed from DMA member lists for three years. (It may take up to three months for you to see a decrease in the amount of mail you receive.) Remember, this does not eliminate all junk mail. You will continue to receive mail from companies and organizations that do not belong to the DMA.
Now, wouldn’t it be something if an easy opt-out system actually did exist? Partial, industry-run solutions are only going to give us partial, industry-defined successes.
So, kudos to Minnesota for recognizing the problem. Now, let’s work towards a real solution!
ForestEthics Executive Director Todd Paglia (pictured left) has a piece up on the Huffington Post about the US Postal Service’s massive summer sale for junk mailers who mail out more junk mail than they did last summer, and the contrasting first-class postage increase for the rest of us. Here’s the clincher:
As for the Postal Service itself, there has to be a better way. The USPS has a $15 billion line of taxpayer-backed credit, which it has been using at a worrisome clip. In fact, the U.S. Government Accountability Office predicts that its credit line could be maxed out by the end of 2010. As with the millions of wasteful credit card offers the USPS delivers every day, the bill will have finally come due, and the USPS’s spending spree will have gotten us no closer to a functional and just postal system.
Read the whole thing. It makes a strong case for reform in a segment of government that we rarely consider.
On Monday 
