Effective January 3, 2008, the Postal Service™ is revising the Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM®) to expand the use of shrinkwrap as an optional packaging method. Current standards in DMM 601.3.6 allow heat-shrinkable plastic film as a packaging method for easy or average loads weighing up to 5 pounds. This revision provides examples of acceptable heat-shrinkable plastic film and increases the average load parcel weight up to 10 pounds when the parcels are prepared on 5-digit, 5-digit scheme, merged 5–digit, merged 5-digit scheme, or finer level pallets. We consider parcels containing soft cover books or Bound Printed Matter items to be average loads when they are prepared on 5-digit pallets, due to the reduced processing and handling required.
We will include these changes in the January 2008 revision of the DMM.
Mailing Standards of the United States Postal Service, Domestic Mail Manual (DMM)
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600 Basic Standards for All Mailing Services
601 Mailability
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3.0 Acceptable Mailing Containers
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3.6 Plastic Film
[Revise the text of 3.6 to provide examples of plastic film and to set a new 10-pound limit for certain parcels, as follows:]
Heat-shrinkable plastic film—either irradiated polyethylene, linear low-density polyolefin, or copolymer—may be used as packaging for mailpieces under the following conditions only:
a. Film must be at least 3/4 (0.75) mil thick for an easy load up to 5 pounds.
b. Film must be at least 1-1/4 (1.25) mil thick for an average load up to 5 pounds.
c. Film must be at least 1-1/2 (1.5) mil thick for an average load parcel up to 10 pounds, only when mailers prepare the parcels on 5-digit/scheme, merged 5–digit/scheme, or finer level pallets.
d. When requested, mailers must provide written certification that these types of film are being used.
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We will incorporate this revision into the next printed version of the DMM and into the monthly update of the online DMM available via Postal Explorer® at http://pe.usps.com.
— Mailing Standards,
Pricing and Classification, 1-3-08
