Do you know how much mail is “Undeliverable As Addressed” (UAA). The United States Postal Service estimates that as much as 34 percent of mail pieces in the mail stream — one out of every three — falls into this enormously costly category. According to a recent USPS study, 1.6 billion pieces of mail were returned, 1.985 billion pieces of mail were forwarded, and over 6 billion pieces of mail were discarded. That’s almost 10 billion pieces of mail that may never reach its intended recipient.
This costs the Postal Service $1.8 billion annually to process this mail, and it costs the senders $5-7 billion to produce and mail those catalogs and letters that are never produced.
Why is some mail undeliverable as addressed? There are a number of reasons. One has to do with the number of people who move each year. Over 40 million Americans change their address annually, which creates formidable obstacles in maintaining a high-quality mailing list. And, the folks that move don’t always submit a Change of Address form to the post office. In fact, only 30% of Americans do that. Another reason has to do with incorrect or incomplete addresses, such as typos, missing apartment numbers, or incorrect zip codes. Although many mailers use address correction software, it only catches a portion of these UAA’s.
So, do the Postal Service, the mailers, and the environment a favor – if you move, fill out a Change of Address form and have your mail forwarded to your new address. If your local government changes your address for some reason (usually for updated zip codes), make sure that the people you receive mail from know that. And, if you happen to receive mail for someone who lived in your house or apartment before you, please recycle it appropriately, or mark it “Moved” and return it to the sender so that they know to remove that name/address from their mailing lists.
