[Rekd]

The California Assembly will debate a bill in coming weeks that would force companies to provide a return envelope for each unsolicited CD they send out, possibly crimping the marketing plans of companies like America Online.

Berkeley Assemblywoman Loni Hancock introduced the so-called Return to Sender bill this week. It would mandate that a postage-paid envelope be included with unsolicited CDs in mass mailings of 200 or more discs. Disposable DVDs such as Disney's 48-hour EZ-D must also include a return envelope -- or other means of returning it for free -- for customers' use.

The bill passed the California Assembly's Committee on Natural Resources Monday. The bill will be heard in the state's arts committee next week and then, if the committee clears it, will head to the Assembly floor in May.

"It's just such conspicuous waste to have this brand-new product made with this expensive and irreplaceable material end up in landfills, especially when the people who put them there didn't ask to receive the product in the first place," Hancock said.

Companies "send a product to people that they do not want, they did not ask for and will not use," she said. "(They) should take responsibility for taking back the product if it isn't used."

Hancock said that such CDs and DVDs end up "in the trash with the coffee grounds" instead of facilities where such high-grade plastics could be recycled into automobile dashboards and parts for electronic devices, for example.

Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, which helped put together the legislation, said these unsolicited CDs amount to added costs for consumers and local governments that have to pay for their disposal. He estimated that 300 million AOL CDs are sent out each year, creating tons of waste.

"I'm not aware of a single curbside recycling program in the state that accepts the CDs or the packaging for recycling," he said. "You're stuck putting this in your trash."

The bill is anti-consumer, anti-business and discriminatory against the software industry and online medium, said AOL spokesman Nicholas Graham. AOL's promotional CDs helped fuel the Internet economy by getting people online in the first place, and have helped to close the digital divide by giving free Net access to disadvantaged and minority audiences, he said.

"We continue to send out millions and millions of CD-ROMs every year because there is a great hunger for them among current members as well as prospective members," Graham said. "One person's definition of 'unsolicited' is another person's definition of, 'Gee, I might try that.'"

The company gets "thousands" of calls a day from people requesting the free CD-ROM, he said. And the company always recycles the CDs that are sent back to it, anyway. Graham said the bill could also have an impact on the music and movie industries that mail promotional material on CDs and DVDs.

"Send this crap to people as much as you like, just take it back if they don't want it," he said.

[NeoMoses]

Interesting I like the idea and think it could cut down on some of the tons of junk mail received every day. Wonder if they'll try to extend this to standard paper mailings as well?

[ESjaavik]

Yeahh!
Now what we *really* want is a Internet spam recycling program!
Let us return the spam to the dickheads that send it out! And to their *personal* mailboxes.