Tag: letters

Postal Service Delivers Data

  • The Postal Service is getting no stimulus money for making its federal buildings more energy efficient. It’s all going to be done with the revenue it makes when you buy a postage stamp. (Photo courtesy of the US Postal Service)

The US Postal Service is the first
government agency to report how much
of the greenhouse gases it emits.
Five-point-three metric tons a year.
Lester Graham reports on how it plans
to reduce its emissions:

Transcript

The US Postal Service is the first
government agency to report how much
of the greenhouse gases it emits.
Five-point-three metric tons a year.
Lester Graham reports on how it plans
to reduce its emissions:

The post office goal is to reduce emissions 20% by the year 2020.

Sam Pulcrano is the Vice President of Sustainability at the Postal Service. He says, over the next six years, they’ll cut fuel consumption by 20% and energy use by 30%. They’re already doing energy audits of the 500 largest postal facilities.

“And where it makes business sense, we’re replacing things like roofs, the HVAC systems, replacing windows with more energy efficient windows and lighting with high-efficiency lighting.”

Graham: “There’s been some consideration of eliminating Saturday delivery. Is that figured into your calculations on reducing greenhouse gases?”

“It will if and when Congress gives us the ability to do so.”

The Postal Service is getting no stimulus money for making its federal buildings more energy efficient. It’s all going to be done with the revenue it makes when you buy a postage stamp.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

A Stamp of Approval

  • The 2008 Nature of America issuance, Great Lakes Dunes, is the tenth stamp pane in an educational series that features the beauty and complexity of major plant and animal communities in the United States. A description of the dunes and a numbered key to the artwork appear on the back of the stamp pane, along with a corresponding list of common and scientific names for 27 selected species. (Photo courtesy of the USPS)

The Great Lakes are getting a stamp of
approval from the Postal Service. Heidi Chang
reports there’s a new sheet of postal stamps
that celebrate the region:

Transcript

The Great Lakes are getting a stamp of
approval from the Postal Service. Heidi Chang
reports there’s a new sheet of postal stamps
that celebrate the region:

The new sheet of stamps is the latest in the Postal Service’s “Nature
in America” series.

John Dawson created the painting depicted on the sheet of stamps. It
features 27 different kinds of plants and animals found in the Great
Lakes Dunes.

Dawson says he hopes the stamps will make people more aware of the
beauty of the dunes, and the need to save the whole environment.

“The animals, the plants, the flowers, the bugs, it’s all inter-related.
That’s what’s important about showing this stuff – that it’s important to
keep the environment intact, because there’s so many things that
depend on each other.”

Dawson has designed all ten of the Nature of America series. But this
one is special to him because he started his career living in the Great
Lakes region.

For The Environment Report, this is Heidi Chang.

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The HIDDEN COSTS OF &Quot;JUNK" MAIL

  • Mixed paper (including "junk" mail) gets trucked to recycling facilities like this one for recycling. First, it's unloaded in big piles, then pulled up a conveyor belt for sorting. (Photo courtesy of the City of Ann Arbor)

If it seems like your mailbox is stuffed with more shiny credit card offers and catalogs than ever before, you’re right. The U.S. Postal Service says the volume of advertising mail outpaced first class mail for the first time last year. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports… city waste managers and environmental groups are concerned that all that mail is going to add up to a lot more waste:

Transcript

If it seems like your mailbox is stuffed with more shiny credit card offers
and catalogs than ever before, you’re right. The U.S. Postal Service says
the volume of advertising mail outpaced first class mail for the first time
last year. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams reports… city waste managers and
environmental groups are concerned that all that mail is going to add up to
a lot more waste:


(Sound of squeaky mailbox opening)


Maybe it’s just me, but it seems like no one sends me letters anymore.
Which means my mailbox is all coupons and catalogs and pizza ads. That’s
not all bad, but honestly, most of it goes right to the shredder.


(Sound of shredder)


According to the Environmental Protection Agency, that’s a pretty common
reaction. The EPA points to one study showing that 44 percent of advertising mail
is thrown away without being opened or read.


And there’s a lot coming in. Last year, marketers and non-profit groups sent
about 101 billion pieces of mail. That’s billion with a “B.”


You might call this junk mail, but people in the business have a more
affectionate name for it: direct mail.


Pat Kachura is with the Direct Marketing Association. She says direct mail
yields a very high return on investment.


“Marketers yield about a 7 dollar return on investment for every dollar
spent on catalog marketing, and about 15, almost 16 dollars return for every
dollar spent on non-catalog direct mail marketing.”


The Association’s annual report says those hefty returns are based on an
average of just 2.7 percent of people responding to the ads they get in the
mail. Last year, that meant more than 600 billion dollars in sales.


So, it’s profitable for marketers to fill up your mailbox.


But critics say there are hidden costs that marketers aren’t paying. Some
of those costs also arrive in your mailbox in the form of a bill from your
city for solid waste disposal or recycling.


(Sound of paper pouring into bunker from conveyor belt)


If your city accepts mixed paper for recycling, your junk mail comes to a
facility like this one where it’s sorted and packaged into giant bales
weighing one ton each.


Bryan Weinert is the solid waste coordinator for the city of Ann Arbor,
Michigan.


“We end up getting about $70 a ton back in the value of the junk mail that’s
recycled. But remember it’s costing the city roughly $125 a ton or so to
pick it up.”


Weinert says his city is lucky because it has double the nation’s average
recycling rate. He says communities that don’t have a recycling program
bear even higher costs to dispose of mixed paper.


In this case, the bales of paper get made into Kellogg’s cereal boxes.


Tom Watson is with the National Waste Prevention Coalition. He says it’s
good when there’s a local market for recycled junk mail, but much of it
actually gets sent overseas.


“The unwanted mail, the mixed paper, generally has a very low value, that is often
shipped to China and it comes back to us in the kind of mottled packaging found on
the products that we buy from China. So, it comes full circle but it’s not
very efficient, all the costs of the transportation and recycling.”


Watson says it’d be much more efficient to cut back on all that mail in the
first place.


The Direct Marketing Association does offer an opt-out service. The group
says their members aren’t allowed to send any new mailings to people who
sign up. The fastest way to sign up is online, but you have to pay a $5
charge.


Tom Watson with the National Waste Prevention Coalition says that charge
might put people off. He says he’d like to see a national Do Not Mail list.
One that isn’t controlled by the industry.


“It’s very common in other countries, you can’t send mail to someone unless
they say in advance, yes I want to receive that mail from you.”


You might expect that the folks at the Direct Marketing Association aren’t
fans of the Do Not Mail list idea, but they’re not the only ones.


“What is our position on that? (laughs) I wouldn’t like that to occur.”


George Hurst is the brand manager of direct mail for the Postal Service.
It’s his job to get direct mailers to send more mail. That’s because it’s
the second largest source of revenue for the Postal Service, in the tens of
billions of dollars.


Hurst says new laws aren’t needed. Instead, he says marketers just need to
know their audiences.


“The ones that don’t do it too well, and just blanket the earth with a message,
God bless ’em, we love the postage. But you gotta know that if you’re
talking to someone who is say, 100 miles away, about coming to your
dry cleaners, you’re probably missing the mark.”


But critics say consumers deserve to have more say over the mail they bring
into their homes. They say marketers make so much money from the mail they
send… that for that small chance you might be interested in a coupon book or
sale notice, you shouldn’t have to pay the cost to throw it away or recycle
it.


For the GLRC, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Woman Fights Uphill Battle Against Water Diversion

  • Upstream on the Glen Tay River in the Fall of 1999. Residents fought against a Swiss company (OMYA) who wanted to draw water from the river to make slurry for products like toothpaste and paper. (Photo courtesy of Carol Dillon)

In many communities, there are increasing demands for the limited supply of water. But people often feel there’s little they can do to protect that water from outside interests. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports on one woman who fought to stop millions of gallons of water from being drained from her local river:

Transcript

In many communities, there are increasing demands for the limited
supply of water. But people often feel there’s little they can do to protect that
water from outside interests. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Karen Kelly reports on one
woman who fought to stop millions of gallons of water from being
drained from her local river:


(sound of crunching leaves)


It’s been a wet spring. But the leaves along the shore of the Tay River in Perth, Ontario
crunch beneath your feet.


Carol Dillon walks a path that was once submerged in water. She stops at a maple tree, and
points to a ring of greenish bark around its trunk.


“This is where the water comes to normally in the spring…
This was sort of the natural shore line, but the water has not
been this high, this would be the fourth year now.”


(sound of wind, crunching of leaves)


Carol Dillon and her husband, Mel, bought this piece of land in
1999. They came here to retire. Then, in the fall of that year, the Tay River dried up.


Four months later, they were shocked when a manufacturer applied
to take 1.2 million gallons of water out of the river every day.


“We simply looked out the window at this very dry river and
said, well how are they going to do that?”


Dillon soon found out they weren’t the only people asking that
question. Six thousand residents depend on the river for drinking water.
Another six thousand draw from wells in the river’s watershed. People worried there wouldn’t be
enough clean water during the dry season. And that wildlife would suffer.


(sound of truck)


An 18-wheeler pulls out of the OMYA plant in Perth, carrying a
load of calcium carbonate sludge. The Swiss company needs water to make the sludge, which
goes into products like paper and toothpaste.


They already draw about 400 thousand gallons out of the area’s
groundwater each day. But OMYA wanted to triple its water consumption so it could step
up production, with a promise of new jobs.


The public had 15 days to comment on the company’s plan.


As a consultant with the federal government, Dillon knew a bit
about bureaucracy. So she started helping out neighbors, who weren’t sure what they
could do.


“At one of the public meetings, a farmer stood up and said,
‘I’ve been a farmer on the Tay River for 40 years, but I don’t know
what to write in a letter to the minister.’ He said, ‘well, we have
to be careful with the water.’ And I said, ‘that’s your letter.'”


Dillon says she wanted to convince people that their voices do
matter. So she dropped off envelopes for them, faxed their letters, and
answered lots of questions. Before she knew it, she had kick-started a grassroots
movement.


“I was not a tree hugger in my life and I never was a
political person, either, but always believed in responsibility…
This is a democracy and when people have an opinion on something,
your government should hear it.”


People were inspired by Dillon. Jackie Seaton is one of the many who got involved.


“She simply spoke to the issue of water. If you’ve ever read
any of her memos or heard her speak at a council meeting, I mean
everybody can understand what’s she saying because it’s in the
plainest and simplest terms. And I must say that was very, very impressive.”


Typically, the ministry of environment receives fewer than 10
letters. But 283 townspeople wrote in to oppose the water taking.


Despite that, the ministry granted OMYA its permit.


The residents could appeal the decision to a quasi-judicial panel. But without money or a lawyer,
they decided it would be impossible.


Dillon, however, disagreed. She forged ahead on her own, and won the right to a hearing. She
relied on scientists who had retired in the community to help her prepare. It would be her word
against lawyers representing the company and the government.


(ambient sound)


Dillon pulls a thick plastic binder off a bookshelf that’s packed
with evidence used in the hearing.


She insists she wasn’t against the water taking per se. She just wanted the government to make a
decision based on good science. The company was granted the initial permit based in part on 75-
year-old data. Dillon argued more research needed to be done.


Over the past eight years, 46 community groups have challenged
decisions by the Ministry of the Environment.


No one had ever won – until now.


The panel granted the company just one third of the amount of
water it requested, with a potential for more in the future. And it directed the province to conduct
more research on the river.


“First, we were…it was unbelievable and then we were
ecstatic that it was all worth it.”


But the citizens’ celebrations were short-lived.


In April of this year, Ontario’s environment minister, Chris
Stockwell, reversed the tribunal decision and reinstated the full
permit. He cited new information that predicted the river would drop only
a few inches when the water was removed. The minister won’t comment on the outcome, other
than to say he stands by his decision.


But OMYA’s plant administrator, Larry Sparks, says the decision
was based on science. And while he recognizes that citizens have a right to question the
government, he says it shouldn’t come at the expense of business.


“And it’s very difficult to make
business decisions when you apply for a permit and have to wait three
years for approval and conclusion of the process. Our concern was not with the people, but rather
with the fact that the process was allowed to go on for three years.”


For Carol Dillon, the minister’s decision was a disappointing end to a
long struggle.


“You can have this two and a half year-long process and the
minister can just overturn it, politically, then what’s the point
of it all? So I’m back to where I started.”


(sounds by the river)


But Dillon hasn’t given up. Now she’s lobbying Ontario to adopt new standards for water use.
She doesn’t care if she has to write letters, battle lawyers or
lobby politicians – she just wants her community, and everyone in
Ontario, to have a say in the future of their water.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Karen Kelly.