Streetwalkers cost us all

People walk the streets and push bits of paper through our letterboxes. Most of those bits of paper are usually put straight into a container which we place outside regularly. Other people walk the streets to remove the bits of paper from these containers and take them away. Both these sets of people who walk the streets are paid and are a cost to society in general, the taxpayer specifically and to the environment.

The destruction of trees, production of paper, printing, transportation, logistics, all the associated resources, landfill and incineration are all costs to the environment. Fuel is burned and other natural resources consumed directly or indirectly at each part of the process.

While the delivery of post may be seen as a cost to the sender we are all contributing to the cost of its disposal, via taxation.

Some mail is useful whether pleasant or not (bills), some is simply pleasant to receive (cheques, letters and greetings cards) but the bulk coming through my domestic letterbox is “marketing” which most people directly bin.

Of course the reason mass mail marketing continues is that it works. A small percentage read it and purchase enough products that the mail shot is worth the cost invested. Since marketing costs are factored into product costs, the consumer ultimately pays for this too.

So we are all paying for this practice of paper delivering and collecting by “streetwalkers” as a cost to the environment, taxation and in the price of goods when we purchase them. Don’t even mention the government subsidies and assistance to “protect” mail services over many years either.

At one level mail is an essential service providing a useful function to business, government and domestic users. But when will we wake up to the fact that these absurd wasteful practices blended with the essential ones are costing us all in so many ways?

Some may consider that the use in this article of the word “streetwalker” is not strictly correct, but the dictionary defines it as “one who solicits in the streets”. Is that stretching the word too far to make the point?

And when will the postman stop folding my mail in half before pushing into a perfectly large enough letterbox?

But is there a beneficial side to this? Do the economics work the other way? Perhaps the junk mailers are helping keep the unit costs down. If stripped back to essential mail only would the cost of posting a letter rise, become too costly and unsustainable?

Are there parallels between mass mail marketing and the internet?

With the rise of internet blogging, social networking, commercial websites and all the associated marketing, the development of systems delivering this information to our homes and businesses is driven by financial motives and the affiliate ads are the “new” junk mail. It all helps to pay for the internet services we enjoy and benefit from, keeping the cost of our entertainment with the web low or free.

Although initially developed for military and academic purposes, the web infrastructure has been developed for the wider mass market only in so far as there is a viable financial business model to provide profit to investors in the relatively short term. Unless there is a change in attitude by politicians this will continue to be the case and future developments will only be driven by profit motives and not for the benefit of the consumers.

There is no motive for faster broadband if big business is already creaming massive profits from the current system. Would they invest or spend big amounts of money unnecessarily on something for which there is no direct return? And why should they? The financial reward will be for a limited few big companies that can provide the top quality streaming HD TV on demand directly to our homes via the faster broadband. As more people adopt on-line viewing, capacity issues will arise unless this increase is factored into the internet system designs. Speed and capacity are key.

Fast or slow, although not “carbon neutral”, by comparison to postal mail the impact of our internet activities to the carbon footprint and wider environment should be very much lower.

In a capitalist system the provision of our internet services is driven by the profit motive or greed. The price we pay for “free” or lower costs is the pop-ups, banners and side column ads persuading us to buy things we may or may not want or need.

The impact of global computer ownership on the environment is a subject for another time. Many homes and businesses in the developed world already own and use computers although the benefits of being on-line are pulling in many more who would not own one otherwise. In a direct comparison between creating all the systems required and operating them, the environmental impact of world wide web communications must surely win by a long way.

Whichever way we look at conventional marketing or internet marketing, we all ultimately pay. But with the internet there is no landfill for the delete button or the recycle bin.