Postal Service Offers Amnesty for Return of Equipment

The Postal Ser­vice has issued an all-points bul­letin for the appre­hen­sion of its deliv­ery tubs and pal­lets, no ques­tions asked.

It is a pallet-able propo­si­tion because the Postal Ser­vice spent nearly $50 mil­lion last year to replace equip­ment that has gone miss­ing. Because of the finan­cial cri­sis the USPS cur­rently faces, it is a seri­ous issue, and it can ill afford any kind of unnec­es­sary expense. The equip­ment is clearly postal prop­erty and the agency wants it back.

The Post Office usu­ally deliv­ers mail to busi­nesses in “flat tubs,” as they’re tech­ni­cally called, and expects to retrieve them the next deliv­ery day. More pop­u­lar than Tup­per­ware, deliv­ery tubs have become the stor­age con­tainer of choice for local busi­nesses and indi­vid­u­als. The warn­ing label – “Max­i­mum penalty for theft or mis­use of postal prop­erty $1,000 fine and 3 years’ impris­on­ment” — hasn’t appeared to deter those that stock­pile them. How­ever, with the busiest mail­ing sea­son of the year fast approach­ing, hoarded stor­age con­tain­ers are catch­ing the post office short of equipment.

The amnesty period to return mail trans­port equip­ment (MTE) boxes and pal­lets runs from Novem­ber 12^th to Novem­ber 26^th. Hoard­ers, col­lec­tors and users of Postal Ser­vice MTE are strongly encour­aged to sur­ren­der the fed­eral prop­erty imme­di­ately. Any Post Office will accept them, no ques­tions asked.

Dur­ing the amnesty period, equip­ment can be dropped off at local Post Offices or nearby mail pro­cess­ing and dis­tri­b­u­tion cen­ters. Arrange­ments can be made for the Postal Ser­vice to pick up large amounts of equip­ment and/or pal­lets by send­ing an email to hqmte@usps.gov. Include “Equip­ment Pickup Request” in the sub­ject line. In the mes­sage include com­pany name, address, type of mail trans­port equip­ment and quan­tity, and con­tact information.

There also is a mail trans­port equip­ment recov­ery hot­line,
(866) 330‑3404, that can be used to report the mis­use of equipment.