Photo credit:
peterkaminski, flickr
Some days, all I get is junk mail. You, too? Going away for a week and stopping mail for that time has often resulted in a stack of mail over a foot high. Where I pick up my mail these days, though, there's a big trash can labeled "Mixed Paper" in which I can toss all the unwanted circulars, credit offers, extra copies of the monthly newsletter from my co-op (do I really need FIVE?), and all the other junk I dont't want or need. So kudos to the US Postal Service's expansion of its lobby recycling program, offering mail recipients a convenient place to recycle unwanted junk mail.
More than half of the mail sent through the US postal system is "direct mail," a euphemism for junk mail. Nearly half of that junk mail goes unopened. And then it goes into landfills, bulking up what's already a huge waste stream. Recycling even some of it would help.
USPS recycles nearly 1 million tons of recyclables (paper, cardboard, plastics, cans, etc) each year. In 2008, it generated more than $12 million in revenue from the sale of recyclables as raw materials. With an increase of more than 1800 lobby recycling centers nationwide, that figure is sure to increase exponentially.
Where's the nearest USPS lobby recyling center? Like with all things recycling, Earth911 has added USPS centers to its database. (I notice they also list places that take phone books.)
Oh, and yeah. You can stop junk mail at its source by opting out.
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While recycling is, of course, a positive thing, it still requires energy to transport the materials, melt them down and then re-manufacture items. If you stop the junk mail from ever reaching you will avoid the amount of stuff that gets put in landfills and your recycling bin. I use proquo.com to get of junk mail lists and stop catalogs. It has reduced about 80% of my junk mail.