The post office's business model is based off the bulk movement of thousands of tons of "junk mail". Think of all the wasted fuel used to transport and deliver, wasted inks and printing materials, and the wasted trees.
"According to the Center for Development of Recycling at San Jose State University, an American adult receives 41 pounds of junk mail a year. To produce this much paper requires cutting down somewhere between 80 million and 100 million trees annually. If left standing, these trees would absorb 1.7 million tons of CO2 a year. "
If any private company had this wasteful of a business model it would have been shut down long ago. The way they offset costs is by delivering more and more junk mail. We can't request to have our names put on a "no mail" list like we do with telemarketers as that would remove the money maker.
The post office is a "government service", it doesn't need to be profitable, but being able to offset costs is great. The only way to save the post office and the environment from all this is by a complete restructuring. The USPS is stuck in the past, it processes more and more parcels and less and less "First Class" mail yet hasn't updated it's policies to reflect that change.
Congress needs to revamp how the USPS makes its money.
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