Association for Postal Commerce
"Representing those who use or support the use of mail for Business Communication and Commerce"
"You will be able to enjoy only those postal rights you believe are worth defending."

USPS REPORTS ON "LIFE CYCLE INVENTORY ANALYSIS OF THE U.S. MAIL"

The following is a report to be published in the PostCom Bulletin 44-08.

The U.S. Postal Service (USPS) has finally discussed publicly the results of a study that had been commissioned by the USPS' Environmental Policy and Programs on "the energy consumption, waste generation, and pollutant emissions associated with mail in the United States." The actual study was conducted by one of the nation's top environmental analytic firms, SLS Consulting Inc. (A copy of another SLS report on"Informing The Dialogue: Facts About Mail And The Environment" has been available on the PostCom web site. Much of the information discussed in that report is founded on the information that served as the basis for the Postal Service's report.)

According to SLS Consulting, the USPS report provides a "model...that enables, for the first time, a comparative analysis of the environmental aspects (e.g., pollutant emissions, solid waste generation) of different mail products." In essence, the model provides the Postal Service's long-sought "environmental footprint" of the services it provides.

The USPS report contains sufficient information to guide future USPS and private sector mailer efforts to improve further the already favorable environmental findings. Here are some of this report's more interesting findings:

Solid waste generated across the life cycle by the four major mail products amounts to 9.7 million tons, and the amount discarded post-use amounts to 5.4 million metric tons, which is about 13 percent of the amount of paper and paper board that is discarded in the municipal solid waste stream annually in the U.S.

The share of each pollutant that is attributable to Postal Service operations is highly variable, but is uniformly within the top five (of 17) life cycle stages, along with the paper and board manufacturing, printing/mail production, dropshipping, and, for both solid waste generation and carbon dioxide emissions, landfill disposal life cycle stages.
 

The estimated quantities of solid waste generated by the Standard Mail and Periodicals classes as predicted by the model are within 25 percent of published EPA figures for 2006.
 

Total energy consumed by the four mail products accounts for 0.6% of national energy consumption, a figure that seems reasonable given the quantities of mail in the U.S. economy, and the energy-intensive nature of paper and board production, printing, and motor vehicle transportation.
 

Total energy consumed by the four mail products accounts for 0.6% of national energy consumption, a figure that seems reasonable given the quantities of mail in the U.S. economy, and the energy-intensive nature of paper and board production, printing, and motor vehicle transportation.
 

At the household level, energy and CO2 emissions associated with the entire mail life cycle are roughly comparable to those from operating any of several common home appliances over the same period of time.

To be perfectly clear about this, it was noted in the Postal Service study that the energy and CO2 emissions associated with mail was roughly equivalent to the annual houselhold energy and CO2 emissions of an electric coffee pot. In short, mail is NOT the environmental dispoiler mail critics have recently sought out to make it be. Indeed, the data underlying the USPS study puts into starker contrast the wrecklessness regarding the integrity of the nation's universal mail delivery system associated with efforts to enact "do not mail" provisions at the state and national levels by self-styled (but generally misinformed) "environmental" advocates.

The USPS study contains a wealth of data. It merits very careful study of all the information it contains as well as a close examination of the publicly available data that serves to underpin its findings. Those who are interested in receiving a complete copy of this report should contact Joanne Veto at 202-268-3118 or joanne.m.veto@usps.com.