Earth Class Mail aims to help enterprises cut the costs of delivering postal mail.
Earth Class Mail receives postal mail, scans the front and back of each envelope, and sends customers e-mail notifying them that they’ve received postal mail. Customers view the images of the envelopes and have the option to specify what they want done—such as opening and scanning the contents of the mail piece, recycling, shredding, shipping it to yourself or to anyone else, archiving it for safe keeping or depositing checks into a bank account.
I know what you are thinking? Open my mail! Is this service secure? Will my mail be kept private and confidential? Earth Class Mail guarantees security, through a “a patent-pending security system that’s far beyond anything currently available to private-sector businesses that outsource either hardcopy or electronic documents.” They also participate in the US-EU Safe Harbor Framework Program which ensures compliance by American companies with privacy-protection standards observed in the European Union.
Pricing starts at $19.95 per month.
Earth Class Mail has already partnered with Swiss Post.
Some interesting statistics from their web site:
- “Post offices are generally among the largest consumers of energy in their respective countries.
- Various studies report that the average person recycles perhaps 20% of his or her mail, while Earth Class Mail customers recycle more than 90% of their mail.
- For every ton of paper we recycle, we reduce the marginal air pollution generated by new paper production by 74% and water pollution by 35%.
Most of my postal mail is junk mail, and it goes unopened. And if I start thinking of the waste: the printing of junk mail, the delivery of it, and then my putting it in the recycling bin, the recycling truck picking it up and recycling it. “Dust to dust.” But obviously, whatever the response rate is for direct marketers, it seems junk mail is still a viable business.
What do you think? Would you subscribe to Earth Class Mail?
