Comcast presents Ecobill

"Congratulations! Every day we're making Comcast.com better and better for customers like you. Now we're doing even more ... so you can do less. Because we've introduced Comcast's Ecobill™ process, an environmentally friendly way to view and pay your bill online that takes less time and uses less paper.

paperless is more convenient!
One less bill in your mailbox? Less clutter? Who doesn't want that? Now, with just the click of a mouse you can quickly review your entire bill from any computer. And we've made paying your bill even easier.

paperless is more green too!
Imagine, by eliminating paper bills (and the envelopes they come in) we'll drastically cut down on the total amount of paper we use. So together, we'll save more trees.

wow, that was easy!
We've also made paying your Comcast bill more green. Just go to Comcast.com/ecobill and sign in. Then, in just a few steps, you can choose to have your Comcast bill paid each month, directly from your checking account. We also have other convenient options that make paying your bill fast and easy."

Three cheers for Comcast! Finally, a company that truly cares about the environment. So many companies today promising us that they're "going green," but at last, here's one that really practices what they preach! Comcast, I raise my canvas grocery bags to you in respect! Sorry, this is the first time I've blogged about anything not related to music, I usually abhor such lazy sarcasm but I'm feeling too cynical to resist it in this case.

Paperless billing? Good job. Now then, do something about all this shit you send to me and every single other unit in this building every single week, junk mail that is apparently impossible to unsubscribe to.

I've lived here for 2 years and have surely received more than 100 of these 6" x 11" fliers. They just keep coming, and there seems to be no way to stop them. Taking your name off their list? Not an option! Actually signing up for the services they offer? You'll still get the fliers every week. For every 1,000 of these that are sent out to individual addresses, does more than 1 go anywhere from the mailbox but straight into the local landfill? Surely Comcast has done the research and has found this carpet-bombing approach of a program to be profitable in reaching customers, even if its benefits are minimal.

I don't have a scale to find out how much each of these fliers weighs, but altogether I can only imagine the tonnage of paper per year that could go into producing these. Factor in fuel spent and man-hours wasted by the Postal Service to deliver each one and you've got an astoundingly wasteful program that merely serves to annoy potential customers, not to mention reminding existing ones how little their continued patronage matters in trying to bring about a stop to this nuisance.



Wouldn't cutting out this waste also cut costs? Is it really bringing in that much business every week? Wouldn't this be the best way to "go green?" It won't be long before everyone sees these empty gestures for the PR moves they are, and when "green fatigue" starts to set in, will the new consciousness emerging in today's consumers be squashed?