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Your mail may get a bit greener

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TEXT OF STORY

Bill Radke: The Postal Service is coming out today with its carbon footprint. It's part of a plan to make the agency more energy-efficient, and more efficient with its cash.

From the Marketplace Sustainability Desk,
Jennifer Collins reports.


Jennifer Collins: The post office wants to be a little kinder to the planet.

SAM PULCRANO: The Postal Service is the first and only federal agency to voluntarily and publicly report its greenhouse-gas emissions.

Sam Pulcrano is in charge of sustainability at the agency.

The Postal Service's tax on the earth? About 11 million tons of CO2 a year. That's roughly the greenhouse-gas emissions of 550,000 Americans. Think the population of Las Vegas.

Pulcrano says the agency wants to shrink that footprint. It'll take vehicles off the roads and conducting energy audits, and that'll help the post office save money. It ended the last fiscal year more than $7 billion in the red.

PULCRANO: The Postal Service is facing reduced volume as a result of the current economy so therefore anything we can do to reduce our costs is essential.

The agency also plans to trim its electricity use 30 percent in the next five years.

I'm Jennifer Collins for Marketplace.

About the author

Jennifer Collins is a reporter for the Marketplace portfolio of programs. She is based in Los Angeles, where she covers media, retail, the entertainment industry and the West Coast.
Josh McKibben's picture
Josh McKibben - Oct 15, 2009

I live in Dallas, TX and I go to the Post Office daily. The one thing that bugs the heck out of me is that they don't recycle. The whole business is paper, why just throw it all away? Is this a Dallas thing only or do other PO's trash the mail?