Patent ID: 8346674

Claim:
A system for handling unwanted physical mail pieces and preventing future delivery of similar mail comprising: a discard collection bin which: receives one or more pieces of physical mail discarded by a recipient of the physical mail, the recipient being indicated as an addressee of the physical mail, routes the received piece of physical mail through a scanner to produce an electronic image of the front panel of each piece of discarded physical mail, and immediately subsequent to the producing of an image and without requiring a command from a user, shreds the received piece of physical mail into a collection basket; an optical recognizer device which receives the front panel image from the discard collection bin, determines from the front panel image a sender identification and a recipient identification; and a server computer which receives the sender and recipient identifications from the optical recognizer and electronically notifies the sender of discarded mail to discontinue any mailings to the recipient, wherein the notification requires no command from the user.