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DCL
Your office may send and receive a veritable boatload of paper mail. Even if your office tries to digitize the majority of its correspondences, a few messages undoubtedly go out by snail mail. Even worse, if your office has to send out mailers or bills to people with a second envelope on the inside of the original envelope: What can be done? Your office has to make a living, right? Good news! There is a way to cut back on the amount of paper used in snail mailing. The United States Post Office okayed reusable envelopes just last year.
The forerunner of the reusable envelope industry is a company called ecoEnvelope. They offer four different types of envelopes, each one can be reused once. Two uses in all? That doesn't sound that "reusable." I mean, in theory, you could send out a plastic envelope and devise some way of affixing addresses and return addresses to the epistle, but that doesn't sound like it would save companies very much money. They'd have to pay more for the envelope and to mail it. There is a good chance that the consumer wouldn't even return the envelope or the consumer would just throw it in a Dumpster and not recycle it properly. Plus, the USPS might take issue with these heavier-than-paper envelopes that, en masse, are weighing down their planes and delivery trucks. So two uses is all we get. Now for the good news.
These envelopes are made out of 100% recycled content paper, and it has been estimated that the use of one million reusable envelopes saves 250 million BTUs of energy and 37,000 pounds of greenhouse gases. That's a pretty good reason to get your office to utilize reusable envelopes.
