Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Junk Mail is Bad for the Environment

Canada's Boreal Forest


According to ForestEthics, junk mail’s contribution to climate change equals more than nine million cars, seven US states combined, or the emissions generated by heating nearly 13 million homes for the winter.

Just as the Do Not Call Registry freed Americans from telemarketers, a Do Not Mail Registry would give us the choice to stop junk mailers from violating our privacy, wasting our time and damaging the environment.

Sign a petition to Support a Do Not Mail Registry in the USA and then tell your friends. If you live in Canada, please Support The Red Dot Campaign here.

ForestEthics has published the Naughty and Nice list, which you may read here. Below is a listing of the companies of the naughty, nice and check twice companies.

Nice - patronize these fine folks
  • Timberland
  • Patagonia
  • Crate & Barrel
  • Dell
  • Victoria’s Secret
Checking Twice
  • JC Penney
  • HSBC
  • Bank of America
  • Lands’ End
Naughty - Do not patronize these businesess - or - write them about their careless use of natural resources
  • Sears
  • Neiman Marcus
  • Eddie Bauer
  • Capital One
  • Chase Bank
  • Citi
  • American Express

A company's ranking on the scorecard is determined by using four criteria -- whether endangered forests are cut to produce the company's catalogs; whether the company uses Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified paper; the amount of post-consumer recycled content in the company's direct mailings; and the company's efforts to reduce overall paper consumption. The group looked at 21 companies, all of which have either sourced or are currently sourcing the Boreal Forest in Canada for their fiber.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Good article. I was unaware of the naughty or nice. But junk mail really is a waste 100 million tress 28 billion gallons of water. It needs to be stopped.

Here is a video with more facts.
http://www.politicommunity.com/video/video/show?id=2264381%3AVideo%3A11224

CyberCelt said...

@tom-Thanks for stopping by and sharing. Good luck with your video and the PolitiCONTEST.