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Carbon Footprint of US Junk Mail Equivalent to 480,000 Cars

matadorchange.com — The average person in the US receives nearly 11 pieces of junk mail each week, or 560 pieces a year. This amounts to 4.5 million tons of junk mail yearly, of which 44% goes straight to the landfill unopened and unread.

Who dugg this? Made popular May 20, 2009

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  • nahsrocketeer75, on 05/19/2009, -0/+27Eleven pieces a week? HA! My wife's no average person; she gets at least 11 pieces a day (or so it seems).
  • rucksack, on 05/19/2009, -1/+28Yeah, my parents get buckets full of junk mail - and it all goes straight into the recycling bin. Such a waste.
  • Pyehole, on 05/19/2009, -2/+25Does anyone actually look at junk mail? My apartment complex has thoughtfully provided a recycling bin next to the mail boxes and the only thing that ever makes it up to my apartment are bills, netflix, gamefly and the one magazine I subscribe to. The rest is instantly discarded.
  • HuskyPuzzle, on 05/20/2009, -1/+20Junk mail will be looked back on by future generations as one of the stupidest practices us old fogies had back in the days of the early 21st century.
  • AlanJV, on 05/19/2009, -2/+14Pretty amazing when it's broken down like that. Junk mail sucks every way possible.
  • EmilyCragg, on 05/20/2009, -1/+12Let us please get rid of junk mail. All I ever do with it is throw it out.
  • Bloodwine, on 05/20/2009, -2/+13The sad thing is junk mail is keeping the USPS afloat right now. How in the hell did our mail delivery system get to where it is a junk mail addict that can't quit?

    If it weren't for the occasional card or letter I send, I'd say to hell with USPS and let it dissappear. They thought they would be around forever, but the internet is eating their lunch.
  • kkeith02, on 05/20/2009, -3/+13I call for taxation on junk mail to help pay to plant a new tree... or is that too close to the old Stamp Act that caused a revolution?

    Better yet, outlaw junk mail... oh wishful thinking.
  • nyxerebos, on 05/20/2009, -0/+10Spammers only need a small number of sales for each piece of junk they send, especially if selling high-value items or there's a possibility of repeat custom. The way to fix this is to make it more expensive to run their operation, till average ROI drops below zero. Post back empty business reply envelopes FTW.
  • FXNGLAS, on 05/20/2009, -4/+12I get way more than 11 pieces a week. I wonder though, if there was no junk mail, I honestly think the USPS would have gone bankrupt by now.
  • dalittle, on 05/20/2009, -5/+13Marketing people have a sick sense of success. A return rate of something like 1 in 10,000 or even 1 in 100,000 is considered a great hit rate. Really there should be some controls to reduce this, it wastes peoples time and pollutes to little benefit.
  • moulin1, on 05/20/2009, -0/+7I signed up for the USPS "opt out" list. My junk mail volume tripled. The marketers use it as another mailing list. Unlike the "do not call registry" the USPS list has no penalties for abuse by marketers.
  • inactive, on 05/20/2009, -1/+8We do but recycling causes emissions from the process itself.
  • nyxerebos, on 05/20/2009, -3/+9you must be a retard
  • trevor98, on 05/20/2009, -1/+6You don't just send it back, you put their address as both the to and from and don't put any stamps on it. Your name has to be included- as in targeted junk mail. The USPS wants their money for moving this mail and their only target is the junk mail sender. The USPS will stop delivery over this debt so the mailing company will put you on their don't send list (you cost them money and risk their business). I no longer get targeted junk mail but I still get "Current Resident" stuff.
  • drewbe121212, on 05/20/2009, -1/+6Spam and Junkmail. I want to know who the idiots are that keep reading / opening them. Obviously they do it because some people fall for it. ehhh...
  • nhansen, on 05/20/2009, -2/+7Having spent some time in this business while in college - I can tell you that it won't stop. The company I worked for had figured out that they could mail the same address 270 times before it became unprofitable. LOTS of money in list selling and junk mail.
  • domfosnz, on 05/19/2009, -0/+5Not me. But I expect plenty of people do. I don't think they would send it if it was not profitable.
  • inactive, on 05/20/2009, -0/+5 Same here,it gets tossed aside as soon as we see it.
  • Rixta, on 05/20/2009, -3/+7So if we stop junk mail, the only alternative is email spam....but I'm willing to press 'delete' 20 a times a day instead of getting crap in my mail box.
  • nyxerebos, on 05/20/2009, -0/+4We can, but that's only a tiny part of the problem. Trees need to be cut down and transported with fossil fuels, turned into paper (which uses a lot of petrochemicals and releases bleach, etc into environment) and driven to your house in a post van. Recycling a little paper is not going to offset that.
  • densetsu23, on 05/20/2009, -0/+4In Canada, you can attach a sticker / label / etc to your mailbox that says "No Junk Mail" (or something to that effect). Every time I did that, Canada Post stopped putting junk mail in my mailbox. Not sure if Canada Post is *required* to stop delivering junk mail or if they're just doing it out of the kindness of their heart, but they always listened.

    There was still the odd piece of junk mail, mostly from small local businesses, and depending on the individual who brings around weekly flyers, you may or may not get those as well. But it did stop a lot of junk mail from reaching me.
  • Peleus, on 05/20/2009, -1/+5With online bill pay and email now, postal workers are mostly spam delivery. Sad.
  • haikuFU, on 05/20/2009, -0/+4I once kept all junk mail for a month and weighed it before I tossed it, 21 pounds. In a year, I throw out around 240 pounds of junk mail.

    Ever try to unsubscribe from it? Those damn "coupon packs" they send... I finally figured out who made them. I called them and told them to take me off their mailing list. They wanted me to fill out some form that I had to come and PICK UP from them, sign it, have it notarized, and bring it back. That's a bunch of ***** right there.
  • yerdaddy, on 05/20/2009, -0/+3One time I got pissed off at a local ad agency's ridiculous fliers. I went to their website and homed in on their difficult to find comments input page. It was broken and seemingly wouldn't accept the message, continuously re-routing me back to a blank input page. I ignored it and just figured the message was sent but that they didn't want to admit receipt of it in cases that became troublesome somehow. Three months later the fliers were still coming and I figured they intentionally broke the comment system. So I went to their site again and sent so many messages that their site administrator would get fried by all the error reports and make the company do something about it. The fliers stopped coming.
  • yerdaddy, on 05/20/2009, -0/+3That doesn't eliminate the useless production waste. It only diminishes it slightly.
  • nyxerebos, on 05/20/2009, -0/+3I'm sure they realize, they dont care, any more than email spammers care that they're wasting your time.
  • Innuendo24, on 05/20/2009, -0/+3You can just say playboy...
  • nyxerebos, on 05/20/2009, -0/+3That's not a bad idea, mandatory 1 tree per catalogue/20 envelopes - we'll have the rainforests back in no time.
  • yerdaddy, on 05/20/2009, -0/+3I hear this argument alot. Keep in mind the USPS was around before junkmail and it can continue without it just as easily. It just doesn't need to be as big of an operation.
  • alpha88, on 05/20/2009, -0/+3Email spam isn't nearly as bad (or least it isn't on gmail) because the junk mail filter is pretty accurate.
  • Peleus, on 05/20/2009, -0/+3Great tip +1
  • davewashere, on 05/20/2009, -0/+3@ SeaDog: I work in mail services and in my experience this is not true. Return envelopes are processed by the post office and charged to the permit holder for that specific return envelope (commonly called BREs by the post office). Am itemized bill (separated by weight/mailing class) is included with each delivery of these return envelopes. The note in the box where the stamp would go that reads something like "No stamp necessary. Postage paid by Permit 2349" does not actually mean that anyone has already paid for the postage. That's why some charity organizations will include a little note on the envelope that encourages people to place a stamp over the postage paid message to save the charity from having to pay the postage.
  • sagenhoney, on 05/20/2009, -0/+3Junk mail goes straight from mailbox to my recycling bin.
  • freezerburn666, on 05/20/2009, -1/+3my cat enjoys playing with and tearing up junk mail, so i leave it scattered on the floor. he runs under it, chews off pieces and bits and leaves them all over, nothing the vacuum can't clean up. i hate that i have so much, but at least it entertains my fury friend. when garbage day comes it goes straight in the recycling, but the next day i get another load, enough for the cat to start up a small nesting pile so the cycle can start again..
  • dave122, on 05/20/2009, -0/+2Yeah, there actually has been legislation introduced similar to the donotcall list, but the usps lobby shut it down. It's the main source of their revenue.
  • RainNIU, on 05/20/2009, -1/+3I used to work for Experian's Marketing Services division, who does massive snail-mail marketing for Citibank clients (Hilton, Home Depot, gas cards, etc.). The response rates are brutal to send all that physical mail out. It's proof that they make such a huge spread off one person that it's worth wasting marketing efforts on non-responders. Good thing Experian laid me off once Citibank prematurely killed our contract (They didn't want to take on any more risk with their current financial situation) because now I work for an email marketing company (not junk mail, rather marketing to current customers you want to hear from). Similar marketing business, but cheaper, greener, and a much better office culture.
  • Kakemonstere, on 05/20/2009, -0/+2Well, in Norway at least almost everything that comes is advertising of electronic shops and just supermarkets. It's pretty nice to know that you can save like 20 bucks if you went buying your beer now than waiting 3 days.
  • FuzzplugJones, on 05/20/2009, -0/+2Actually, you'd be surprised how much advertising is considered a success based on a 1-3% response rate.
  • angelschambers, on 05/20/2009, -0/+2Try asking the post office to opt out of junk mail. You'll learn why they send it, I did. That junk mail brings in more revenue for them than the stamps they sell and the express service combined. It's all a scam to make money for USPS. Ask them, they'll tell you the same thing. But most people don't know that and that's why it continues.
  • AnalystX, on 05/20/2009, -0/+2That is precisely what I was going to comment on, but it's even worse than you state. Not only does spam consume energy to travel the Internet, but there's also the user's (and server's) hard disk drive (HDD) platter material with a definite mean to failure that is slowly consumed in the process of writing, reading, and rewriting (deleting) the data on the disk. Eventually that HDD will make its way into a landfill (or recycled with additional energy consumption) after an early death. Then there's the energy consumed by the user's HDD circuit and mechanics during its use. Then there's the energy consumed by the rest of the user's computer and monitor used in the processing and display of the spam before and as a user or automated filter takes action.

    Spam is quite insidious.
  • kublerross, on 05/20/2009, -0/+2So you're saying that you enjoy the junk mail so much, that 480,000 cars isnt a big enough number? Hell I dont care if it was 1 car I say outlaw junk mail, its a nuisance!
  • ztbq48, on 05/20/2009, -1/+3I can't believe no one has mentioned this yet:

    www.catalogchoice.org/

    It doesn't work for most spam fliers, but it's a start for junk catalogs.
  • SeaDog, on 05/20/2009, -0/+2Most return envelopes are pre-paid buddy... they considered this already...
  • nyxerebos, on 05/20/2009, -0/+2Sure, but trees in commercial, managed forestry aren't the ones which need replanting. Forcing the junk mail industry to be part of the solution seems like a win to me.
  • yerdaddy, on 05/20/2009, -0/+2Until you figure out that server farms for ads and the network bandwidth it burns accounts for half of all internet traffic and energy consumption.
  • bannor78, on 05/20/2009, -1/+3credit crunch, liquidity lock up, worst loan market ever. .... and I still get 3 credit card apps a day
  • moulin1, on 05/20/2009, -1/+3That is what the USPS says. And their executives retire with a government pension and go to work for the junk mail marketers thy are defending. It's a hoax. They count the revenue from junk mail but ignore the expenses.
  • ByrcheWroot, on 05/20/2009, -1/+3If everyone would realize you can "opt-out" of some junk mail, like credit card offers, it wouldn't be as much of a problem. I probably only get like 11 pieces of junk a year now. The same people that complain are often the same people that do nothing about it.
  • Ki77erB, on 05/20/2009, -1/+3Except the good way.
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