DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

Jon Carroll published a fascinating idea today. If it catches on, it could permanently scar the junk-mail industry, by making the perpetrators pay a lot more than they bargained for.

The idea, in a nutshell, is to send back, empty, the free reply envelopes included with the junk mail. This forces the sender to pay the return postage.

Imagine the millions of pieces of trash some of these companies send out every day, which go straight into the recycler or (worse) into landfills. Now imagine millions of enterprising junk-mail victims returning the reply envelopes empty, burying the junk-mailer’s processing center in a deluge of what appears to be legitimate business. The processing center hires additional staff to open all these envelopes, only to find that most of them contain nothing but perhaps a little love note, something along the lines of “junk mail sucks, and it’s a real pity I’ve helped drive you to financial ruin, not.” Heh.

It’s damn intriguing. Here is the column in full: Let’s save the Postal Service