Postal Service Helps Consumers Make Eco-Friendly Decisions

With the right resources, it's easy to be green. The U.S. Postal Service is offering greener choices, and an easy, online resource for consumers to make environmentally friendly decisions about their mail.

From eco-friendly products and services to ideas for recycling and ways to help marketers create greener advertising, usps.com/green contains hundreds of facts, suggestions and programs to help improve environmental awareness and make it easier for consumers to go green including a way to calculate carbon footprint savings by conducting Postal Service business online.

"Our mission is to deliver now and for future generations," said Sam Pulcrano, vice president, sustainability. "With every step we take, we are committed to leaving a green footprint across the American landscape."

Almost anything a customer can do in a Post Office can be done online. The green web pages provide the extra benefit of one quick, easy and convenient location to learn how to be greener consumers. An easy-to-use navigation bar directs users to product, recycling, Postal Service environmental innovation, direct mail and ideas for greening mail, including links to local recycling centers, reusing boxes and packages for shipping, and ensuring home addressing is current to make sure consumers receive the mail they want and eliminate waste.

Customers also can order packing and shipping materials through the green site, including free Express Mail and Priority Mail boxes and envelopes that are Cradle-to-Cradle certified for environmental quality. A half billion Priority Mail and Express Mail packages and envelopes now meet higher environmental standards and more than 15,000 metric tons of carbon equivalent emissions are eliminated every year.

As one of the nation's leading corporate citizens, the U.S. Postal Service is committed to environmental stewardship. USPS empowers consumers to "go green" through a comprehensive approach to mail production, delivery and recycling that enhances sustainability, meeting the needs of the present without compromising the future:

• The Postal Service recycles more than 1 million tons of paper, plastic and other materials a year.
• The "Mail Back" pilot program provides postage-paid envelopes to recycle small electronics, including PDAs, cell phones and inkjet cartridges.
• USPS is working with OSRAM SYLVANIA Veolia Environmental Services to help consumers properly recycle compact fluorescent lamps.
• Water-based inks are used to print stamps.
• Postal buildings are being upgraded to reduce energy use with a goal of reducing energy consumption by 30 percent by 2015.
• The Postal Service has received 39 White House Closing the Circle Awards for outstanding environmental stewardship.

And, the Postal Service delivers the mail in the most energy-efficient way possible. A third of all deliveries are made on foot.