Sustainability in Operations
Processing the Mail
Jordan Small
Vice President,
Network Operations
What’s New
- Added new materials to be recycled, including plastic tubs, strapping and shrink-wrap.
- Now recycling out-of-service chipboard pallets into biofuel, new pallets and building materials.
In 2009, the Postal Service collected, sorted and delivered more than 177 billion pieces of mail. Finding more sustainable ways to process the mail helped us lower our energy costs, reduce petroleum-based fuel use and prevent significant amounts of recyclable material from ending up in landfills.
One way we increased sustainability in our processes was by improving the operational efficiency of our equipment and mail sorting programs — allowing us to process more mail with fewer machines.
Matching workload to mail volume gave us an opportunity to condense operations in several of our mail processing facilities, turning a 24-hour operation into a more efficient 18–20 hour operation. The efficiency increases also enabled us to consolidate a number of our remote encoding and mail processing facilities.
We also evaluated the equipment we use to transport mail, increasing our use of equipment — like mail tubs — returned from our customers instead of purchasing more.
Facts and Figures
$2.4
million
revenue from recycling mail transport equipment
1.087
fewer machines
mail processing machines removed with no impact to service
$314
million
reduction in highway contract route fuel costs
Mail transport equipment
In FY 2009, the 23 mail transport equipment (MTE) service centers recycled plastic, cardboard and metal resulting in $208,574 in revenue and avoiding disposal costs. We also recycled unusable wood pallets, an effort that generated an additional $1.1 million.
Another initiative this year was recycling more than 100,000 condemned chipboard pallets. These pallets previously were sent to landfills and USPS was charged for their disposal. Now they are recycled — as biofuel to create energy, as raw materials to make new pallets and in new composite, long-life building products.
Other new items recycled in the MTE network during FY 2009 include plastic mail tubs, strapping and shrinkwrap. Total MTE recycling revenue for FY 2009 was $2.4 million.
USPS Supply Management reduced its purchase of cardboard boxes in FY 2009 by nearly $7 million, partly by using reclaimed boxes from MTE service centers rather than buying new ones.
Equipment reduction
USPS removed a variety of machines from facilities across the country, lowering the amount of energy required to sort mail.
In FY 2009, USPS removed 855 barcode sorters, 91 flat sorters, 40 small parcel bundle sorters, 96 canceling machines and 130 power industrial vehicles, including tow motors and forklifts. These reductions were achieved without impacting service commitments.
Making existing equipment more efficient has also supported our sustainability efforts. And we’re using two new software programs that sort and track the mail to help us reduce energy.
The new sorting application creates programs based primarily on mail density. In two pilot locations, it is sorting mail more efficiently. That means fewer trays are going through our network, resulting in fewer trucks on the road and fewer trays on airplanes.
The tracking program has better diagnostic features that improve the accuracy of mail sorting — resulting in fewer pieces that are missorted. The fewer errors we make, the less time and energy we spend correcting them.
Improved processing efficiencies
USPS in FY 2009 began reducing he time spent processing mail at a number of facilities. By creating smaller operating windows, we make sure we use equipment and energy as efficiently as possible.
Improved address recognition software has allowed us to reduce the number of remote encoding centers — facilities that process digital images of addresses that can’t be read by automated sorting equipment.
USPS also is moving to Area Mail Processing — sending mail to geographically centralized locations for processing — to help us reduce the square footage and number of buildings we need. Smaller buildings can be operated at lower costs, using less energy, while handling the same mail volume.
Surface transportation
The Postal Service saw a significant reduction in the number of miles its employees drove and the amount of petroleum-based fuels used to transport the mail in FY 2009.
By consolidating a number of our transportation routes, our Highway Contract Route (HCR) service drove 16.5 million fewer miles. That played a part in reducing HCR extra runs beyond what is scheduled. They declined 31 percent, and USPS avoided more than $23 million in additional costs.
Fewer trips and lower fuel prices helped us lower HCR fuel expenses by $314 million, while postal vehicles consumed 1.5 million fewer gallons of fuel, for an annual savings of $5.4 million.
