FROM GARBAGE INTO GOLD
THE U. S. POSTAL SERVICE FINDS PROFITABLE WAYS TO RECYCLE MAIL
Stop. Before you toss that piece of mail you've finished reading into the trash, stop and think about what happens to it.
Every year millions of pieces of mail are thrown away, either because they are undeliverable as addressed, not forwardable, or already read and acted upon. America is a mobile society. In fact, nearly 30 million people move every year. What happens to all the mail that can't be forwarded when people move? Mail is sometimes misaddressed or the address is illegible or outdated. What happens to that mail when it can't be delivered? Every year the Postal Service delivers more than 185 billion pieces of mail. When people are finished with it, does all that paper end up clogging our landfill and posing a threat to the environment?
The Postal Service has been tackling that problem and working hard to turn undeliverable and discarded mail from an environmental liability into a salable commodity. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has classified mail as mixed paper waste, so all of it is completely recyclable. The Postal Service, already an award-winning environmental leader with recycling available at more than 20,000 locations nationwide, is working on creative ways to ensure that mail does not end up as landfill.
- Instead of paying to have its recyclable garbage hauled away to a landfill, the USPS is selling it. Last year the Postal Service made more than $8 million in revenue by selling its recyclables and avoided a like amount in waste disposal fees.
- In Central Illinois alone, the Postal Service will recycle and sell about 5,000 tons of trash in 1998.
- The USPS is turning its recyclable mail into innovative products such as compost soil, pencils, and roofing materials.
- The USPS has developed trash containers for discarded mail that are themselves recyclable. They will soon be in post offices lobbies nationwide.
Besides being recyclable and helping the Postal Service to make money, mail has important environmental advantages. Advertising mail, which provides more than 20 million jobs for American workers and is looked and or read by 85 percent of the households that receive it, is actually good for the environment. Studies show advertising mail reduces shopping trips by car as many as 300 .million times a year. That means:
- A savings of about 250 million gallons of gasoline every year.
- A reduction of about 300 millions tons of exhaust emitted into the air every year.
- A reduction in automobile accidents and deaths every year.
Mail is good for the economy, and it is also good for the environment. So the next time you are tempted to toss your mail into the garbage when you've finished with it, remember it is all recyclable. And it could even end as part of your roof.