Having spent more than $50 million this year to replace packaging and pallets, the United States Postal Service (USPS) has gone on the offensive to retrieve stray and lost packaging assets, including postal pallets, trays and tubs.
In November, the USPS announced a two-week amnesty period to encourage the rapid return of postal-owned equipment, especially pallets and mail tubs. This announcement came on the heels of recent equipment recoveries made by the U.S. Postal Inspection Service (USPIS) involving arrests and fines of people in Georgia, Florida, and California.
The USPS didn’t clarify what would happen after the amnesty period. However, it was asking for the return of postal packaging. Pallets should be returned by sending an email to hqmte@usps.gov. The USPS will make an arrangement to pickup the pallets and packaging. It has also set up a mail transport equipment recovery hotline at 866/330-3404.
“We are in a financial crisis and simply cannot afford this type of unnecessary expense. The equipment is federal property and we want it back,” said David Williams, vice president of network operations for the USPS.
Through the years, the USPS had made similar appeals for the return of postal packaging although it has refused to set up an asset recovery program to compensate recyclers, pallet companies, warehouses and others for expenses involved in safeguarding and returning these assets. Instead, the USPS has offered amnesty and outreach efforts backed up by the threat of legal action.
“This is nothing new. We have been here before,” said Bruce Scholnick, president of the National Wooden & Pallet Association (NWPCA). He added that the last time the U.S. Postal Service didn’t offer a viable asset recovery plan and was so poorly managed that its efforts were largely unsuccessful.
Federal court rulings in legal disputes involving CHEP and other proprietary pallet and packaging owners have maintained the ownership rights of entities even for stray assets. But the courts have also confirmed that pallet companies and others involved in safeguarding and returning those packaging assets are due just compensation for costs involved in this process. Failure to do so could amount to unjust enrichment.
Scholnick commented that he was not aware of any law that exempted the federal government from unjust enrichment requirements. “The last time the NWPCA took a position on this issue, we ran into a wall with the USPS. We are likely to face the same thing again this time, just with different people,” said Scholnick.
Laura Dvorak, communications program specialist with the USPS, said that she did not know of any compensation program offered by the USPS but it never hurts to make a request when setting up the return. She also pointed out that the USPS will pick up large volumes of stray equipment, which reduces some of the costs to others in the supply chain.
In its press release, the USPS referred to recent enforcement actions and the penalties involved with misuse of postal property. The USPS stated, the following message is printed clearly on all U.S. Postal Service equipment:
WARNING: Maximum penalty for theft or misuse of postal property, $1,000 fine and 3 year’s imprisonment (Title 18 USC 1707). Chapter 58 of the Postal Operations Manual (POM) and Title 18 Section 1707 of the Federal Criminal Code contain the policy and laws regulating use of all mail transport equipment.
The USPS has its own police division to monitor postal crime. The USPIS has led recent enforcement actions aimed at rounding up stray packaging and pallets. Most notably, the owner of a Florida pallet company that sold more than 21,000 pallets belonging to the USPS was arrested by Postal Inspectors in Florida. He was aware that the pallets belonged to the USPS and that the sale of those pallets was illegal, according to the USPS. The defendant was sentenced in federal court to five months in prison and he and his company pled guilty and were ordered to make $419,206 in restitution to the USPS.
Seeking to reel in wayward equipment, Postal Inspectors launched the Equipment Recovery Project in 2008. Since then, Inspectors have recovered almost 200,000 pieces of MTE, including pallets, trays and tubs, worth more than $4 million. The items were reclaimed from businesses ranging from a New England fish market to California recycling firms; from pallet bounty hunters to major mailers.
