Effects of Junk Mail on the Environment

Studies regarding junk mail (with the exception of catalogs and phonebooks) have shown that the average household gets sent only 1.5 personal letters a week while receiving in average 16 envelopes of junk mail. Doing the math, when adding up the weight of the junk mail, using a conservative estimated average weight of 2oz per letter, it amounts to 41 pounds of junk mail per house per year! The 2001 Canadian Census reported there to be 11.5 million households, which means just under one BILLION pounds of junk mail per year in Canada only. In other words, that's roughly 18 times the weight of the Titanic! If an average mailing costs 10 cents per letter, it sums up to about $250 million per year for these useless mailings, 40% of which go directly to the garbage bin unread and only 2% of which are responded to.

The worse thing about junk mail is not just the fact that we receive it. Its negative environmental impact is astounding: forests are destroyed to make pulp, toxic chemicals are used to print them, landfills are clogged, and to dispose of them is pricey, among other issues. As one can visibly understand, junk mail is not just a nuisance to us; it's to the environment as well.

The negative effects of logging to build the paper used for junk mail are everywhere. Deforestation destroys the equilibrium of forest ecosystems, which can erode the soil, destroy habitats, damage water tables, and impact on the environment in many other ways. Disappearance of forests renders the atmosphere unstable by taking away trees that would otherwise eliminate carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) from the air. The damage to the water tables that can be caused by deforestation dries drying otherwise fertile soil, which then becomes highly prone to erosion and further soil damage. Erosion due to deforestation can in turn increase the risk of drought or flooding in waterways. Erosion is not the only soil damage. Working with ground water can result in sucking away
important nutrients from the topsoil into the water table. Changes in forest cover, water supply, and soil content have a direct impact on forest ecosystems. Each year, deforestation, especially in tropical rainforests, results in the extinction of tens of thousands of animal and insect species. Also each year, production of pulp to create junk mail creates almost 2 billion tons of carbon emissions: equal to the pollution of about 9 million automobiles.

Unfortunately, the damages does not end with those created by the production of junk mail. Once mailed and later tossed in the garbage, it still needs to be disposed of. Since almost 40% of a typical landfill is contained of paper and cardboard, junk mail becomes a huge part of an already serious waste problem. Junk mail produces approximately 1 million tons of trash each year, most of it cannot be recycled. Many of the inks used to for printing are loaded with toxic heavy metals, which can eventually leak from landfills into ground water. And if that isn't enough, imagine all of the junk mail distributed in Canada in a given year placed end to end. It would circle THE PLANET MORE THAN 10 TIMES!

Last but not least, the primary concern with junk mail is the cost. With annual mailing fees of around a quarter of a billion dollars, and disposal costs of the same amount, it means that only in Canada a half a billion dollars per year is spent on junk mail. That's a huge amount of money to waste on something that almost nobody even wants. As a comparison, it's worth more than the Gross Domestic Product of Prince Edward Island! So if the environmental impact of junk mail doesn't convince you to ask your name to be deleted from mass mailing lists, think of other ways that money could be used. A half a billion dollars would be very helpful to improve healthcare, fund research, support public works, create jobs, maintain schools, hire teachers, or to benefit the community in many ways.

Dear friend, air pollution is an important global issue. To those suffering from asthma, respiratory problems in general and health issues, clean air is vital. It is also for adults and children, in Canada, the US, Europe, in fact for people in all countries of the world.

Our ultimate goal in reducing junk mail is to have pure air, pure water and generally reduce consequences to the environment.

We need your help to bring down the volume of junk mail and by doing so, help the environment. You can contribute to this admirable cause. It's simple. Just email this article www.belljunkmailpollution.com to your family, friends, coworkers, TV stations, newspapers, magazines, schools, community organizations and companies such as Bell Canada, both in your locality and around the world. Benefits will be a cleaner air and a healthier environment for us all.