Do you know what your junk mail is doing?

My recent poll results were very similar to the recent surveys on the topic “what people do with the promotional inserts which accompany your bills and statements in the mail”. My poll indicated that 56% of the respondents did not read any of the promotions (inserts or flyers) which accompanied their bills while 39% said they “sometimes” they read the flyers and only 6% said that they read the inserts.

Further supporting our poll, a recent Zoomerang study stated:

A staggering 86 percent of consumers said they have never purchased a product or service after receiving a separate promotional document with their monthly statements, with 40 percent of respondents mentioning that the inserts that accompany their monthly statements are always impersonal and irrelevant.

Many do not use or prefer this marketing method of the stuffed envelope approach, and further these promotions go right in the trash – most never even making it into the home. According to www.41pounds.org, each household receives about 41 pounds of junk mail a year. According to this site, the yearly effects can be astounding on the environment.

More than 100 million trees are destroyed each year to produce junk mail. 42% of timber harvested nationwide becomes pulpwood for paper.

The pulp and paper industry is the single largest consumer of water used in industrial activities in developed countries, and it’s the third-largest industrial greenhouse gas emitter (after the chemical and steel industries).

The average adult receives 41 pounds of junk mail each year (about 560 pieces). 44% goes to the landfill unopened.

40% of the solid mass that makes up our landfills is paper and paperboard waste. Transporting junk mail costs $550 million a year. Creating and shipping junk mail produces more greenhouse gas emissions than 2.8 million cars.

About 28 billion gallons of water are wasted to produce and recycle junk each year.

Yet no sources are available that identify the issues associated with the inserts or promotional flyers that accompany must read documents such as bills, insurance letters and updates, 401K’statements, credit card statements and many others mailers. Why are these flyers so popular with marketing? It represents an additional revenue stream for the company. The more little flyers stuffed into an envelope without going over postage rate, the more money for the company and the worse for us.

More research indicated that these little “pesty promotions” are actually the most difficult to recycle since the inks contain high concentrations of heavy metals. Using the Environmental Defense Fund’s www.papercalculator.org helped determine the test example and it’s environmental effect. 

Assumptions for the test included four promotional flyers, measuring 8.5 by 11 inches, mailed to 10M customers per month, 64,087 pages equals one ton of weight, and numbers do not include the statement paper or the envelope).

The results are mind boggling – here is a summary:

Trees (179K lost in trees)

The Baseline Paper uses 25,962 tons the equivalent of about 179,736 trees

Wastewater (216 Swimming Pools)

Wastewater measures the amount of process water that is treated and discharged to a mill’s receiving waters. Wastewater volume indicates both the amount of fresh water needed in production and the potential impact of wastewater discharges on the receiving waters. 1 Olympic-sized swimming pool holds 660,430 gallons.

The Baseline Paper uses 142,854,143 gallons , the equivalent of about 216 swimming pools

Solid Waste (enough waste to fill 609 garbage trucks)

Solid Waste includes sludge and other wastes generated during pulp and paper manufacturing, and used paper disposed of in landfills and

incinerators. 1 fully-loaded garbage truck weighs an average of 28,000 pounds (based on a rear-loader residential garbage truck).

The Baseline Paper uses 17,062,556 pounds, the equivalent of about 609 garbage trucks

calculations represent one mid-tier credit card mailer, with 4 promotions or inserts per month. Now think about all the bills you receive and the associated flyers. Just take the above numbers and multiply by XX.

Matters will continue to worsen since consumers and states are threatening to pass “Do Not Mail” legislation, forcing marketers to find new ways to reach customers. Meaning more flyers in your must read statements.

Wouldn’t it be easier to place the advertisement/relevant promotion and or educational messaging in the unused white space that already exists on the bill or statement? Hundreds of millions of trees a year could be saved using transpromo best practices.