Are you throwing away money? If you don't recycle your old newspapers, magazines, catalogs, unwanted mail, or used printer paper (any color), you are tossing what could be a significant source revenue right into the garbage can.
Every year, Americans buy 62 million newspapers and throw away about 44 million of them. The result is that we waste our trees, fill up our landfills, and miss out on income opportunities. Currently, recycling facilities pay $125 per ton (2,000 pounds) for recyclable paper, but when a majority of paper is being dumped rather than prepared for re-use, that money goes unclaimed.
Postmarks first admiringly wrote about the BURRP program that was underway in the Tampa, Florida area back in March (you can click here to read the original post). BURRP stands for Bring UR Recyclable Paper (which, while not being the best use of the English language, is one of the better postal acronyms). Employees in Tampa were encouraged to do just that so that their used paper could be added to the postal pile that would then be purchased by a recycling company. In one year, they generated $250,000 in revenue. Now, Postmarks is proud to announce that the Alabama District is participating, too. BURRP containers have been set up in employee areas of the plants, employees at these facilities have been provided BURRP bags in which to transport their materials from home, and every Friday has been designated as BURRP Friday.
Yes, that does have a funny ring to it, and you can join in on the laughter, too, when you bring in that paper from home.
Right now, the BURRP containers are only at the larger facilities, but every employee can participate simply by bringing in their paper and adding it to the postal recycling mix at their own post office.
NOTE: please don't bring anything that has been in contact with food or other contaminants).
Here are some motivating facts and figures
- With recyclable paper being worth $125 per ton, that means that each magazine or newspaper that you bring in (the average weight of both is about one pound) is worth about six cents.
- Americans use about 680 pounds of paper per person each year.
- The average household throws away about 13,000 pieces of paper each year.
- If we recycled just half of the newspapers that we purchase, we would need 3,200 fewer garbage trucks to pick up our trash.
- Recycling one 6-foot stack of newspapers saves the life of one 35-foot-tall tree.
- Recycling a ton of newspaper saves 17 trees.
- Every ton of recycled paper saves approximately 4 barrels of oil, 4,200 kilowatt hours of energy, 7,000 gallons of water, and enough energy to heat and air-condition the average North American home for almost 6 months.
