Write your postmaster!

The USPS has this great service where they'll give you free boxes in which to mail your priority mail packages. In fact, it's SO cool, that you can go to their web site and order a bunch of boxes in your favorite size, and they'll deliver them right to your door.

For FREE!

How cool is that?! Of course, these aren't just "free boxes", they're "free boxes for sending things priority mail", and they're heavily marked as priority mail all over, and you can't send things using the cheaper first class or other lower rates -- that's part of the deal: if you want free boxes, they have to go with the more expensive priority postage. Ok, I've got no problem with that. And I understand how a lot of people have a problem where they think that "take one, free" means "take a bazillion of them, and ruin it for others", so the USPS has to go to some lengths to make sure that people don't take advantage of this great deal. I'm ok with that, too.

But here's the thing that really gets me: once the box has been used for priority mail, they're designed to NOT be recyclable! They make it so that it's very difficult to open the box without destroying it (they even provide a convenient pull-strip to tear the box in half, which is nice for opening, but not-nice for re-use), and they get REALLY grouchy if you try to re-use the box -- AFTER it's been paid for via priority-postage -- by turning it inside out and putting first-class postage on it.

Ok, again -- there are folks who would ruin this system by just using the box inside out the first time, and try to scam some free boxes, and that's bad. So I can understand the Post wanting to make sure that the boxes get used priority at least once. But I just can't imagine -- especially in this day and age of reduce-reuse-recycle -- why they'd go to such great lengths to make sure that these boxes end-up as landfill!

What I'd like to see is some sort of "this box has had its priority-mail postage price paid, and now it's just a plain-old cardboard box" sticker or something that would make it easy and convenient for the American public to waste less corregated cardboard. I'm not sure exactly how it would work, but certainly putting a small sticker on the box which allows the 2nd & subsequent users to send it 1st class, book-rate, overseas or whatever other non-priority way that they want should be OK.

Thing is, I've suggested this to two local postmasters, and they've both scoffed at the idea, citing the strong rules and big penalties for mis-use as their reasons.

Ok, I can understand that there are CURRENTLY strong rules and big penalties -- but there's no reason there HAS to be!

Another system would be: sell the boxes with priority postage already on them (but for the price of the postage, so the box, itself, is still "free.") Ok, that's a less-good solution, as it makes it difficult for the average Joe to free-order 50 boxes (@$4+ each), but at least that way the PO wouldn't have to worry about it!

As is stands, any time I use a regular brown box that's approximately the same size, I have to face a distrusting glare and minor interrogation from the clerk about whether or not I'm stealing from America. And, again, I understand that SOME people are thieves, and that's bad, so I appreciate them trying to stop THOSE people, but all I'M trying to do is pay my fair postage and then reduce the waste. You'd think that America, the USPS, Al Gore and everyone else would be ALL OVER this.

...But they're not.

And I don't quite understand why. It just doesn't make sense to me.

You should write to your postmaster with your suggestions for how to solve this. (Please don't write demanding free boxes as part of your entitlement, because you pay taxes, or some other silliness that will defeat this campaign -- I'm trying to suggest ways to allow re-use of the boxes AFTER they've had their "rent" paid by going through the priority postage system at least once.) Tell your friends, too. There ought to be a way that we can work this out to everyone's satisfaction, dammit!

Just today I tossed-away 20+ priority boxes (I won a pool that resulted in me getting them) that would've been perfect for re-use, except that most of my outgoing goes 1st class. That REALLY grates on my sense of ecology -- waste, waste, waste!

Btw, your postmaster's address is:

  Postmaster
  YourCity, YourState
              YourZip

Be polite & respectful, and try to suggest ideas that take into account the PO's point of view. That's how change will happen.

Thanks!