FEC AO 2022-14

Tue Aug 2 15:27:47 UTC 2022

On 8/1/22 9:47 PM, sronan at ronan-online.com wrote:
>> On Aug 1, 2022, at 9:38 PM, Michael Rathbun <mdr at tesp.com> wrote:
>>
>> On Sun, 31 Jul 2022 12:11:07 -0400, William Allen Simpson
>> <william.allen.simpson at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>
>>> At our residence, the US mailbox is positioned near the recycling bin.
>>> Bulk mail generally goes directly into recycling without being viewed.
>>> Sadly, receiver has to pay for recycling (via taxes).
>>
>> The incremental cost of unwanted postal mail deposited in a recycling bin
>> in most US municipalities is 0.0000% of the monthly charge.  The sender is,
>> however, paying USPS for (however degraded) delivery.  This works for me.
>>
> I’m unsure how you came up with this calculation, but I can promise you it’s not correct.
> 

Likely bulk mail may be a bit higher here, as this is the household of a
former Member of Congress.  There is rather a pile of political mail.  But
that 0.0000% calculation is egregious nonsense for any location.

In this household, approximate percentage of curbside recycling by weight is:

70% paper, mostly bulk mail
25% cardboard, mostly Amazon
  5% plastic milk jugs

This year's recycling plant upgrade was $7.25M, of which $800K was a grant.
Remember that grants come from taxes, too.

On topic, back in the day (2003), measured bulk email was 80%+ of our traffic.

It's not so much percentagewise anymore, because of streaming.  I'm willing to
guess that it's still on that order relative to email itself.

If you have any interest regarding (for or against) an increase of spam
traffic, please comment on the FEC proposal.  Links in the OP.

(Comments due by August 5, 2022)