Spoiler Alert:  I am writing about paper.  If you are easily offended by paper you may want to quit reading.

Have you counted the direct (industry nice term) or junk (actual value added) mail you receive in a week lately?  I get a ton of it.  Most of it I have not sought out, but for whatever reason someone has decided I will respond to this endless barrage of re-purposed tree limbs.

Now, to be fair and honest in my reporting, I have occasionally responded.  I’m not sure what that percentage would be, but let’s say for the sake of argument I get an average of 25 pieces of “direct” mail a week, and over the course of the past year I’ve applied for 1 credit card, clipped 20 coupons, and considered 5 miscellaneous promotional offers.   That would mean that 26/1300 pieces of said mail were affective/relevant to me boasting a whopping 2.0% rate of return.

A recent favorite arrived over the weekend.  It was a letter from the Census Bureau (this is not a political statement, and if that’s your game please comment elsewhere – there’s a multitude of places to do that ) informing me that I should be expecting another piece of mail from them in the next week with the actual census enclosed.  That’s right, direct mail, informing me of some impending direct mail.  Absurd.  Other examples include charities that send me reams of paper that have probably more than offset the contributions I’ve made to their organizations under the auspices of helping those in need.

I get that we all need to advertise and communicate.  I do.  But the thought hit me recently, how much resource must that represent?  In a world where many (not all) have access to email and the Internet  (not to mention web 2.0 platforms) isn’t there a better way?  There has to be many other places that resource could be better used – social causes, deficits, community development and jobs to name a few.

The second thought that occurred to me is that it’s partly my fault.  I toss it in the garbage, or run it through my shredder without taking the time to let these organizations know what I think.  I am that lazy.  Week after week I watch this paper roll in, wasting natural, human, and economic resource – and I’m content to blame “those people” for sending it to me.

Perhaps I need to get off my butt and send an email, make a phone call, and help the organizations that are trying to serve me and others serve us better.  Like many other things our actions are our vote, and that vote is often loudest when we do nothing at all.