| Is the Post Office the Future's Recycling Center? |
| Written by Hank Green | ||
| Thursday, 14 February 2008 | ||
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Yes, I'm talking about the post office. Sure, they've got their problems, but you can't say that they aren't awfully good at making billions of little bits of stuff go to the right places. And, really, what is recycling (and reuse) but getting little bits of stuff to the right places. Sherwood Forlee submitted the "Just Mail It" program as a "greener gadget" at the Greener Gadgets conference, and I recently found it and was struck by the simplicity. I told Sherwood that this would be even simpler with an embedded RFID tag, and he said that, indeed, would be a slightly better solution, if the post office was ready to accept and read them. But the idea is the same...simply have small recyclable items with high resale values dropped into the mail box for recycling. Yes, it would decrease the per-phone recycling profits (and yes, they do make a profit on phones), but it would greatly increase the number of phones recycled, and reduce the age at which devices finally find their way out of junk drawers. It occurs to me that this could be expanded beyond cell phones as well. Though, with exploding laptop batteries, I think they might have to be excluded. But for small electronics of the kind that invariably end up sitting in junk drawers for a decade before finally hitting the landfill, this is a solution that I think is (hopefully) convenient enough for people to actually participate in.
Comments
(9)
Samsung freepost
written by Philip , February 14, 2008
Just the other day I replaced the laser toner cartridge in my Samsung SCX-4200, and was delighted to see a freepost label enclosed with the new toner, I posted the old toner back in its new box to Samsung Ireland yesterday, free of charge. I'd love to hear of other companies that do this. I'd support them, for sure.
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written by Lawrence , February 14, 2008
Hank, I just have to say, very romantic valentines day post.
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written by jj , February 14, 2008
Re: the toner freepost-
you can take empty toner and many inkjet cartridges to Office Depot and get $3 off whatever you buy. They ship the empties to be remanufactured, the whole thing is just that much greener when you consider one big box vs. hundreds of little mailers being used to recycle, plus you can get something free while you're there, like maybe the recycled paper?
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written by cici , February 14, 2008
Hank,
I've found that quite a few schools actually have a recycling program in place for cell phones. They have drop boxes that collect them, erase the info on them, and give them out to kids who are in need of a cheap phone. The post office has envelopes to send ink cartridges in for recycling. Pick one up, drop it in. Easy peasy!
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written by Rich , February 14, 2008
I like this idea, which would help me get rid of all these cell phones I have sitting in my drawer. I know Staples and Whole Foods have drop boxes, but since I rarely go to these stores, it's not worth the effort to commute there just to drop them off.
There's so much I can say.
written by Celia , February 16, 2008
The Postal service is one part of the Federal government that we complain about the least. I want to support this part of the government that has performed consistently for at least the past 75 years. With the advent of the internet, we have slowly used the post office less and less. Some things shouldn't die or fade away because of progress.
Besides, the contents don't kill trees.
HP Includes Return Envelopes Too
written by Gail Nickel-Kailing , February 17, 2008
I have an HP Deskjet and each cartridge comes with a return envelop to send back to HP. I've chosen however to go one step further - I save several of these cartridges, take them to a small shop nearby that refills them and go direct.
1. I'm supporting a small business locally (yes, I know it's a franchise, but it's still locally owned and run). 2. I don't have to send it thousands of miles away for refilling - the 2 miles I drive (always on the way to something else, never a single destination trip) is MUCH less than the distance it has to travel to get to the recycling center. 3. I pay MUCH less for the refills than I pay for new cartridges from HP. All in all, I like the idea that someone is aggregating recyclables, but it's not the only alternative. Gail
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written by Mike Critelli , February 22, 2008
The Postal Service has many capabilities, but there is a significant difference between picking and delivering letters or packages and collecting waste materials.
On the other hand, the Postal Service can help reduce mail waste in many ways: • It is piloting the use of recycling bins in areas in which its customeres receive mail at post office boxes. This gives them the opportunity to dispose of the mail waste before they leave the post office, and it significantly increases the likelihood the recyclable mail will be recycled. One of the problems we have in many communities is that consumers do not know what is recyclable, so they throw mail into waste streams that end up in landfills. That is corrected over time by consumer education, but it is a result of more limited recycling capability that existed in the early days of recycling. Additionally, municipalities sometimes have more limited waste recovery capability than they should, and, therefore, do not recycle what is recyclable. • The Postal Service and the mailing industry are working at ways to reduce wasted, undeliverable as addressed (UAA) mail. UAA is a result of mostly inaccurate addressing, which software can often correct. Recent studies suggest that UAA costs The Postal Service, and all of indirectly, approximately $2 billion per year. • The Postal Service is also looking at ways to create more effective consumer choice (i.e. the Direct Marketing Association's (DMA) Commitment to Consumer Choice initiative), so that mail people do not want never gets created in the first place. The DMA's Mail Preference Service(https://www.dmachoice.org/MPS/mps_consumer_description.php) allows consumers to specify what type of mail they would like to receive and not receive. • The Postal Service and the mailing industry are jointly working on ways to drive paper purchasers to acquire paper only from forest products companies that practice best-in-class forestry stewardship practices. If a tree is cut, another should be planted. Most forest products companies do this anyway, but much of our forest land is owned by pension funds, real estate investment trusts, and private investor consortia that are not as attuned to forestry stewardship as the forest products companies. The Postal Service has implemented a "Greening of the Mailstream" task force, which is working on many of these environmental issues. However, the best environmental argument to be made for mail is that it often substitutes for trips in automobiles. At Pitney Bowes, we support voting by mail, which is preferable to in-person voting for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is the lower carbon footprint. It also is more secure than online voting. Vehicle registration can be made through the mail, as can the transmission of pharmaceuticals. We also like businesses in which people reach customers through shipping of products, rather than depending totally on face-to-face retail. As a society, we should also support retail delivery services. Even if retailers want people to come to their stores to shop, the availability of delivery services obviates the need for them to go to the store in an automobile when walking, bicycling, and public transportation alternatives are available. Small businesses should share delivery services.
Organoderm Skin Care
written by Dr. Ed Domanskis , April 02, 2008
I have taken this idea further and incorporated recycling into my company mission for my skin care products(www.organoderm.com). I use only recyclable material for the containers/caps/labels/ink, I oversize the containers to decrease waste in our landfills. I use no extraneous packaging material. Finally,when the user has used up the great product, they go to our website, download a US Post office label, affix it to the empty container and just put it in the nearest mailbox. It is sent directly to our recycling facility and WE EVEN PAY THE POSTAGE! The products themselves really work and are even elegant. Organoderm-good for your skin, Good for the EARTH!!!
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