What is Green Dimes?
Green Dimes is a website dedicated on educating and informing the public about the serious threat that is Junk Mail, Junkmail, admail (however you want to call it) is to the Environment. Every day, millions of people receive mail that they didn’t want, didn’t ask for and, mostly aren’t interested in. Thousands of companies, large and small, rely on this unpopular method of advertisement to get to the general masses, regardless of the huge negative impact it has.
But don’t believe us, the US Environmental Protection Agency estimates that “44% of junk mail is discarded without beign opened or read, equaling 4 million tons of waste of paper per year, with just 32% recovered for recycling.” Also the Ohio Office of Compliance has stated that “250,000 homes could be heated for a single day’s junkmail.”
The CO2 emissions from 41 pounds of advertising mail received annually by the average US consumer is about 47.6 kilograms (105 Pounds). The loss of natural habitat potential from the 41 pounds of admail is estimated to be 36.6 square meters.
Is estimated that 100 million trees are cut down each year to create the 4.5 million tons of junkmail in the US alone, and an estimated 28 billion gallons of water is also used on the production, annually. Some companies have started to use water-based or vegetable-based ink and laminates, and have increased the use of recycled paper, however, they are a minority in the industry. And regardless their newfound eco-friendly stance, they forget that Junk Mail… is… very… annoying.
There are many organizations dedicated to eradicate the use of junkmail altogether. Also, there have been several successful initiatives, such as the red dot campaign in Canada, that has achieved tremendous amount of success in its attempts to stop admail. We here at Green Dimes, will tell you about effective ways you can help stop junk mail and will try to raise awareness on how serious issue such a trivial, everyday simple detail is in the big picture.