It's time to radically scale back the postal service, by banning the mailing, on paper, of computer files.

The US Postal Service delivers 44% of the mail in the world. 127B total pieces of mail, plus packages, and 46B pieces of first class mail (down from 103B at the peak) of which 13B are "single piece" first class mail with a stamp. That's a lot of trees and a lot of energy.

Last election, it became a political issue, because it carries ballots, and it's not just about mail, as it does a number of low-cost parcels, including, famously, some people's prescriptions. But it shouldn't be a political issue, not to the end of defending vast waste in order to support a few useful goals.

Almost every piece of mail (not a parcel) that I get is a computer printout. It's a file that was in somebody's computer, that they printed (or mass printed) and mailed to me, and I don't want that.

So my proposal is that any person with (or without) an address can register an e-Mail address to associate with it through the post office. Anybody who has a computer file to send to a physical address just check if that address has an associated e-mail, and if so, just send the file to the USPS to deliver. (The registered e-mails would not be public.) The USPS can even charge a fee, like a penny, for this. The sender can provide a return address or not, just like paper mail. This would count as mailing for legal reasons. And yes, this would eliminate the vast bulk of the mail, and the vast bulk of the work of postal employees. It would mean most houses would not get a postal worker visiting every day, which would add some cost to the delivery of parcels and non-printouts. It means those who send mail by having the postperson pick it up would either need to go to a mailbox, or signal online they need a pickup.

In addition, I would personally much rather receive my computer files in electronic form. The ones that come on paper today are a mess and a burden. I mostly want them scanned and thrown in the recycle bin. Many others feel the same. Frankly, I would pay to get senders to switch to electronic if I could, but they need to pay to reduce spam. Those who still want paper don't have to register an e-mail. Or we might allow you to register different e-mails for different types of mail, and to specify that you want some types on paper.

The negatives

So there are some negative consequences but they are far, far, far, far outweighed by the elimination of waste. If we want to keep the price for parcel delivery the same -- though frankly between UPS, Fedex and Amazon there's a pretty robust parcel delivery industry in the US -- we could subsidize it. Indeed, we could set the price of the electronic forwarding to whatever price brings in enough to pay for what we decide needs subsidizing, such as parcels, or home-pickup, or just essential parcels. Frankly, the cheap USPS parcels have done a lot to subsidize companies like Amazon (and their customers,) so we might want to think about that.

If the price of the e-mail is low, it might encourage spam. So maybe it should still cost more. It would not cost the full postage today, but even half of that should discourage most casual spam. Each E-mail would include the price paid, and people might filter based on that price as well as class of mail and type of sender. Senders could also be required to truthfully label things with tags like "bill" or "late notice" or anything urgent, compared to ordinary information, or subscribed publications etc.

Deliberate non-printouts

Of course all senders can usually already e-mail, and the reason mail volume has cut in half is because they already do. That means many senders are willing to pay the price for paper just to get something physical in the target's hands. So they will come up with excuses as to why something is not just a printout, and they will abuse the rules. They'll toss in a meaningless trinket, insist the letter had to be hand-signed (it's a common trick to hand address junk mail to get attention today.) To stop this, each non-printout that is not a clear parcel, could be required to contain a code number or QR code. Any mail recipient can enter that code to complain that they got a printout with a sham physical component, with a photo of it. Enough complaints would trigger an investigation. Even so, I expect senders would get creative so we would want to adapt to what they do.

There could also be a requirement that anything claimed to be a non-printout e-mail the digital part, and physically send the printout and the non-printout materials. That way the recipient can still easily manage and search the printout parts of their mail. Almost every physical thing in the mail still comes with a printed item.

We could exempt individuals and even companies that send less than a certain amount of mail per year, though most of them would be happy to send in electronic form when they can to save work and time and money, and get mail there faster. But the old grandfather who just wants to write a few letters might see no change. The businesses that send mail every day definitely would see a change, and save a lot. They just would lose the marketing benefit they hope to get by stuffing our mailboxes with junk mail and bills.

As I look over the mail I get, there's very little that I would want to come physically. Replacement credit cards and ID cards, and of course parcels, are about the sum of it. A few personally sent Christmas cards and year-end letters (though most of those are all-digital now, even if mailed.) Mail-in ballot forms and a few other official government forms that have punched holes. There's really very little.

And yes, there are a very few cheques. The answer to these is to make them fully electronic, not to send them on paper. DVD-Netflix is dead, and it wasn't our job to subsidize it. What things are you getting in the mail (not parcels) that would not be better in electronic form?