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Unjunk Mail -- But seriously, folks

by Will Craven, http://unjunkmail.com/2009/10/do-not-mail/
October 8th, 2009

Can I play devil’s advocate a bit?

Unjunkmail.com has quickly set up shop and established itself as a center for conversation about junk mail’s annoyance and environmental impacts. That’s awesome.

It’s cool to see the national junk mail conversation expanding, and Unjunkmail’s recent blog posts—on junk mail’s impacts on climate, Canada’s Boreal forests, and Southern US forests—all provide firm evidence that junk mail is not only annoying but pretty freakin’ serious.

But is the direct mail industry taking it seriously?

US junk mail requires the logging of 100 million trees each year. Junk mailers endlessly repeat that paper is recyclable, but hardly any of them use any recycled content. Deforestation accounts for 20% of global carbon emissions—more than all the world’s trains, planes, and automobiles combined. If we want to address deforestation, junk mail is an easy place to start.

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