Postal Services' Green Initiatives

This is Postal Services’ page to document your efforts in reducing unwanted mail as part of the university’s green initiative.  Please submit your idea(s) of what you have done or intend to do to reduce the amount of unwanted/unsolicited mail.

This is the place to document your efforts and to give recognition to you or your department for your sustainability efforts.  Others may use your examples to make a green effort in reducing their unwanted mail.

There are several things I do to reduce junk mail:
When we receive mass mailings, I e-mail the sender the names of the people who have left the university (or those that received duplicate shipments) and ask them to remove their name(s) from the mailing list. 

I ask publishers to send catalogs, books, etc. to me and I distribute them to the person(s) teaching the class(es) during the current semester.  Less packages, packaging, handling, etc. 

I provide publishers a listing of our department's current teaching staff, their courses, office hours, etc.

- Cynthia J Saling, Philosophy Department

We received this from one of our employees:

When we receive "junk" mail in Postal and it has Change Service Requested on it, instead of throwing it out and hoping it will not return, we return it to the sender stating whether or not the person is known to the university. This hopefully reduces the amount of wrong mail that we receive with addresses for unknown people, retirees, and people whom have been gone for years. Letting the sender know that they are no longer here or never were here should work to reduce the amount of unwanted mail that we have to handle in Postal Service.

-Melissa Burton, Postal Services

Always look at the endorsement under the return address to see if the mail piece can be returned. Be sure to mark the reason for return (i.e. Return to Sender - No longer here). Be sure to mark out the address (leave it so that it can still be read) and mark out all bar codes. Return mail can be given to you postal carrier like stamp mail or dropped in a mail box.