The recent fiasco surrounding T-mobile’s attempt to charge customers $1.50 for each paper bill — which they later had to retract after being sued — seemed to indicate people weren’t ready to go green with their mail. Or at least people weren’t willing to pay for something that was originally free. T-mobile thought that by charging for paper bills, its customers would switch over to paperless, which would save an estimated 10.8 million pounds of paper (equivalent to 13,500 trees) a year and who knows how much of T-mobile’s money. Before the charge, about 1,000 customers signed up for paperless each day, but after the charge was announced, more than 33,000 customers signed up daily to be paper-free.  Many of them didn’t sign up with a green smile, however, and T-mobile suffered a public relations debacle.

So will paperless mail still be the next big thing in America?

Tags: Alternative-Energy