The mail in rebate, one of the oldest scams in the book. Companies offer them knowing full well that a good size portion of the population will be too lazy/busy/forgetful to ever send them in.

Paper rebates are often accompanied by paper forms that you have to fill out and mail back, you have to have your receipt, you have to get an envelope and a stamp…in today’s world of email it seems like a lot of steps just to get 5 bucks. Not only does it waste your time, but it uses up a bunch of paper, ink, and fuel to get your rebate to the company, them to process it, and then send you a check back. Hewlett Packard, a company that recently reworked their printer cartridge packaging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, has taken the bold move of removing paper from the rebate process.

HP customers will have the option to redeem rebates online – without submitting any paperwork – when purchasing consumer technology products at the HP Home & Home Office Store.

The “paperless” rebate program gives U.S. customers the option to redeem rebates by entering just two pieces of information online – their order number and billing zip code – instead of completing a mail-in rebate form. The simplified process, which launched earlier this month, is designed to offer customers greater convenience.

This is interesting for two reasons. HP is taking the “risk” that many more people will cash in the rebates, but at the same time is saving a bunch of money on processing paper rebate forms (opening, sorting, reading, disposing, etc). Just the labor costs of processing all that mail has to be huge. There should also be a significant environmental benefit as well. If thousands of people are suddenly not sending mail the savings in paper and fuel should add up.

This change will not save the world, but if every large company in the world went to a system like this, a significant reduction in green house gasses could result.