The Catalog Problem
The unsolicited mailing of catalogs is a massive environmental problem. Not only is it wasting an unimaginable amount of natural resources, it is also hugely energy intensive and produces significant global warming pollution.
• Each year 19.8 billion sales catalogs are mailed in the USA.
• 61 million trees (enough to forest 2,000 Central Parks) are used making these catalogs.
• This paper production uses 59 billion gallons of water (89,000 Olympic sized swimming pools).
• 98% of catalogs are unused eliciting no consumer response and generating 8.7 billion pounds of solid waste (311,000 fully-loaded garbage trucks).
• Producing 7.6 trillion pounds of catalog paper also requires 126 trillion BTUs (enough energy to power 1.4 million homes a year) and creates 24 billion pounds of CO2 global warming pollution (equivalent to the emissions of 2.2 million cars).
The statistics above are from National Wildlife Federation. For even more detail about how catalogs fit into the larger “junk mail” problem, check out this new report from Forest Ethics.