Brooklyn — Green means growth, time for an increased number of customers to participate in recycling at their Post Office. And what’s news for many: those with Post Office Boxes can recycle anything they want to discard while inside 105 participating Brooklyn, Queens and Staten Island Post Offices.

Last year, the Postal Service recycled more than 215,000 tons of material. “Lobby recycling is an important part of the Postal Service’s conservation efforts,” said Charlie Vidich, USPS manager of the corporate sustainability initiative, “because it helps divert paper waste from landfills and helps our bottom line, making us greener and smarter.”

Customers can recycle their P.O. Box mail as an easy, planet-friendly alternative to taking it home to discard. Some recycling containers are locked and feature a narrow opening — about the width of a magazine, so the mail, and customer privacy, is ensured. Photos of the recycling containers and a complete list of participating Post Offices can be found in the USPS green newsroom and at usps.com/green.

“Our history of environmental efforts go back more than 100 years when the Postal Service was recycling — even before there was a universal symbol for it,” Vidich said. “It’s our goal to make every letter and package a greener experience, and lobby recycling is a great way to be green by recycling discarded P.O. Box mail right at the Post Office.”

Another way customers can go green is with 100 percent recyclable packaging supplies. The Postal Service is the only mailing and shipping company to earn Cradle to Cradle™ certification for the environmentally friendly design and health standards of Priority Mail, Express Mail and Ready Post envelopes and supplies. Priority Mail and Express Mail supplies are free to customers and can be delivered at no charge. They can be ordered from the Post Office that’s always open, 24 hours a day, at usps.com/green.

P.O. Box lobby recycling demonstrates the Postal Service’s award-winning commitment to being a good green neighbor. Long a sustainability leader, USPS has won numerous environmental honors, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) WasteWise Partner of the Year award in 2010 and 2011 and the EPA's National Partnership for Environmental Priorities award in 2011.

Of a national scope:

• The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations.
• The Postal Service nationally saved more than $55 million dollars in fiscal year 2011 by reducing energy, water, consumables use and solid waste to landfills, and conservation efforts encouraged by the Go Green Forever stamps. The Postal Service also recycled 215,000 tons of material, which generated $24 million in new revenue, for a total of $79 million.
• According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the nation’s environmental watchdog, advertising mail represents less than 2.4 percent of the nearly 254 million tons of municipal solid waste created annually. Nearly 40 percent of advertising mail is recycled.

For more information about the Postal Service’s sustainability initiatives and the Go Green Forever stamps, visit usps.com/greenand the usps green newsroom.

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Please Note: For broadcast quality video and audio, photo stills and other media resources, visit the USPS Newsroom at http://about.usps.com/news/welcome.htm.

For reporters interested in speaking with a regional Postal Service public relations professional, please go to http://about.usps.com/news/media-contacts/usps-local-media-contacts.pdf.

A self-supporting government enterprise, the U.S. Postal Service is the only delivery service that reaches every address in the nation, 151 million residences, businesses and Post Office Boxes. The Postal Service receives no tax dollars for operating expenses, and relies on the sale of postage, products and services to fund its operations. With 32,000 retail locations and the most frequently visited website in the federal government, usps.com, the Postal Service has annual revenue of more than $65 billion and delivers nearly 40 percent of the world ’ s mail. If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 35th in the 2011 Fortune 500. In 2011, the U.S. Postal Service was ranked number one in overall service performance, out of the top 20 wealthiest nations in the world, Oxford Strategic Consulting. Black Enterprise and Hispanic Business magazines ranked the Postal Service as a leader in workforce diversity. The Postal Service has been named the Most Trusted Government Agency for six years and the sixth Most Trusted Business in the nation by the Ponemon Institute.

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