Capture and destroy

New service helps businesses avoid undeliverable mail

USPS – 12.01.14 – USPS recently introduced a service to help reduce the more than 1.4 billion pieces of undeliverable-as-addressed (UAA) mail returned each year.

Secure Destruction, a USPS Blue Earth sustainability initiative, allows mailers to have letter-sized return-to-sender First-Class Mail captured and securely destroyed at postal facilities for no additional charge.

Using the Intelligent Mail barcode, mail that must be destroyed for privacy reasons can be securely shredded and recycled at a USPS mail processing plant, rather than being shipped back to the sender.

The program benefits both USPS and mailers, Chief Sustainability Officer Tom Day said.

“The Postal Service is able to reduce its operating costs and carbon emissions associated with returning this mail, and mailers are able to reduce the in-house costs of handling and destroying return to sender mail,” Day said.

The program ensures the security of the destroyed mail by following industry standards for confidential information.

Additionally, mailers benefit from increased reporting capabilities. Specific data for all of the mail processed for destruction is entered in the mailer’s database daily to provide updated information for future mailings.

To learn more about the process, visit the program website.