Making a Green Choice This Earth Day

This Earth Day, as people try to reduce their carbon footprints, they need not look any further than the junk in their mail boxes.

Consider the national impact of junk mail: it creates 10 billion pounds of waste that cost upwards of $1 billion to collect and dispose of annually. To further the problem, the United States Postal Service (USPS) just launched Every Door Direct Mail, a marketing campaign designed to increase the amount of advertising mail that businesses send. It targets potential customers without using their names or addresses by sending mail addressed to "Our Neighbor" or "Current Resident" to every mailbox.

While this might be an easy way for the USPS to create revenue, increasing the amount of advertising mail that is sent each year will only hurt the environment. According to a USPS survey, over 1.7 billion pieces of unaddressed mail are sent out each year and with Every Door Direct Mail, the USPS plans to increase such mail by five times, generating billions more pieces of unwanted mail annually.

With Earth Day just around the corner, there has never been a more salient time to take a hard look at the benefits of consumer choice and the reduction of junk mail.

The positive environmental impact of consumer choice is undeniable. Our non-profit, Catalog Choice has been working to reduce junk mail and its subsequent carbon footprint since 2007. In addition to offering free online opt-outs, Catalog Choice offers a host of other services including the first-ever mobile app to opt out of unwanted mail by taking pictures of it and Catalog Choice for Communities -- a municipal partnership program that offers communities a customized service to reduce waste, save money and rid consumers of junk mail by stopping it at the source.

This past March marked the one-year anniversary of Catalog Choice for Communities, and when we stopped to look at the results of our community program, the numbers were astounding. In just one year, 19 communities were able to save 20,000 trees (equivalent to the number of tree's in New York City's Central Park), 3,000,000 pounds of solid waste (which is enough to fill 125 garbage trucks), 8,000,000 pounds of greenhouse gas (equivalent to the amount of emissions produced annually by 364 HUMMERS), and 19,000,000 gallons of water (equivalent to 29 Olympic sized swimming pools).

Imagine the cumulative impact if citizens and communities participated in Earth Day by reclaiming their mailboxes and opting out of unwanted advertising mail? It's one of the easiest ways to make the greatest impact.

Sending more junk mail is just not a sustainable answer to the USPS' problems or the environment's.

Chuck Teller is the Executive Director of Catalog Choice.

 

Comments

[Ms Liann]

06:01 PM on 04/21/2012

I save a ton of dollars getting the grocery ads delivered free each week. Without the grocery fliers I would spend several hundred extra dollars each year buying the exact same stuff I now buy.

My NETFLIX three-discs subscription is a bargain because I can squeeze in trade-in two cycles per week, bringing the cost per disc-day down to REDBOX prices, and I don't have to leave the house to go to the kiosk. The price goes up if I can't trade discs twice a week because the mail has slowed down, and REDBOX does not have the 20,000 discs selection I am used to. I can't get TV shows, documentaries, foreign films, classic films and workout exercise programs from REDBOX. UPS and FedEx is not going to rent them to me if their lobbyests destroy the US Mails.

[GetRealFacts]

09:14 AM on 04/20/2012

This article is a great example of what a writer shouldn't do.

He simply googled statistics needed to support a claim without understanding the bigger picture. Anyone who thinks the mail/paper industry in the US needs to "save trees" is laughed at by people within the industry.

The U.S. paper industry plants more than 2.3 BILLION trees each year in forests that are planted, groomed and thinned for harvest in 20 to 35 year cycles.

If you want to "save trees" ...go to a third world country that is chopping down rainforests to make a quick buck. This article is ridiculous, and totally off-base.

The EDDM program is a huge success for the small business community.

Sorry, had to get that off my chest as an entrepreneur and Park Ranger.