Virtual Mailbox Customers Keep 6 Tons Of Junk Mail Out Of Landfills Every Week

SAN ANTONIO, April 21, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- Earth Class Mail, an online service for accessing postal mail, will recognize its customers' recycling efforts by donating a tree for each one of them this Earth Day, April 22.

It's part of an effort to offset the impact junk mail has on the environment while also raising awareness of how virtual mailboxes can decrease people's carbon footprint. The company has committed to becoming carbon neutral by the end of 2022.

More than half of all mail processed by the U.S. Postal Service is junk mail, most of which is thrown away. Earth Class Mail customers don't have to sift through that bulk. Instead, their junk mail is part of the 6 tons of mail recycled each week at the company's operations center. Customers also choose to recycle the majority of their other mail, flagging only the documents they want to preserve.

Every year in the U.S., an estimated 5.6 million tons of junk mail ends up in landfills, in part because as much as two-thirds of articles people try to recycle ends up contaminated, according to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency analysis. Earth Class Mail oversees the shredding and recycling to avoid contamination.

"With Earth Class Mail, it's like I have an email spam box for the physical world," said customer Daniel Hoang. "If we can't keep junk mail from existing, I can at least make sure it's all recycled."

It takes 80 million to 100 million trees to produce one year's worth of junk mail. To recognize this, one tree for every Earth Class Mail customer will be planted by the National Forest Foundation. The nonprofit identifies and restores federal forests. Customers who join Earth Class Mail for the rest of 2021 will also have a tree planted as a thank you for digitizing their mail. 

The partnership with the National Forest Foundation contributes to deforestation needs near Earth Class Mail's operations center. In 2020, wildfires near the Beaverton, Ore. center damaged 1 million acres of land and temporarily delayed business operations. The foundation established priority zones in Oregon and California areas damaged by wildfires.

The company will also purchase carbon credits through Grassroots Carbon, a San Antonio public benefit company that helps ranchers finance sustainable farming through business partnerships. It's a step toward Earth Class Mail's goal to become carbon neutral.

"We want to thank our customers for their efforts at recycling and match their actions with a commitment to measure, analyze and reduce our own carbon footprint," Earth Class Mail CEO Fergus Burns said. "If we all make changes like these, we can restore the environment."

To reach its goal of carbon neutrality, the company will partner with GreenFeet, a software platform that allows organizations to measure their environmental impact and build a climate action program.

Earth Class Mail is the leading virtual mailbox and virtual address provider in the U.S. Since 2004,the company has scanned more than 10 million pieces of mail and deposited over $1 billion in checks. The company has helped over 50,000 customers, including companies like Zapier, Reddit, and Lyft, access and control their postal mail online, from anywhere. Visit www.earthclassmail.com to learn more.

SOURCE Earth Class Mail

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