There is a new online service created to reduce the amount of catalogs that are sent to American mailboxes. The Ecology Center, National Wildlife Federation and the Natural Resources Defense Council have collaborated on the new online consumer service called Catalog Choice. It gives people who shop via catalogs the choice of which catalogs they receive in the mail (and which ones they wish to stop). During the first week of launching the new site, 25,000 people had signed up.
Paper usage has had a huge impact on the environment. Each year, 19 billion catalogs are mailed to American consumers. This uses 53 million trees (between 300,000 and 500,00 acres of land cleared or thinned) which creates 7.2 billions pounds of paper. Processing and transporting this paper results in 5.2 billions pounds of carbon dioxide emissions which equals the emissions of 2 million cars. And it also requires 53 billion gallons of fresh water.
If this new service can lower catalog printing by just 20%, that would be 10 million trees and 100,000 acres of land saved, per year. And, a billion pounds of greenhouse gases reduced.
In its press release, Laura Hickey, senior director for Global Warming Education said “Every day, millions of unwanted catalogs clog consumers’ mailboxes and are immediately tossed in the trash. More than just an annoyance, they are overflowing municipal waste systems, devouring precious natural resources, and contributing to pollution and global warming.” Hickey notes that unlike other do-not-mail services, Catalog Choice is free.
Sounds like a great idea and I am sure your mail carrier would appreciate you signing up too.
www.catalogchoice.org Sign up for the new service here
www.papercalculator.org find your impact on paper usage
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