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Community Corner

Bridging the Environmental Chasm Between Mail and Email

Is crafting and sending a letter an obsolete skill? Does it conflict with an eco-warrior's mission? Putting ink on paper doesn't need to be a totally black-and-white issue.

On the grand timeline of humanity, many of us are in the minute sliver of history where we've experienced the world without the Internet, and then with the Internet. Generations forever to come will view that duality of existence with amazement.

And being in this coveted era, I've embraced the transition with vigor. Email and texting are my primary forms of written communication. But there was a time in my own life when the only method of reaching out to a distant friend involved paper, pen and an insanely inexpensive service called the U.S. Postal Service. An ever-diligent individual would courier documents from sea to shining sea, for mere coins.

Legend has it, this daily-visiting superhero was known as Mailman (emphasis, and implied superheroism, mine).

To my bewilderment, I recently learned you can still use said service, and this technophile is making it a point to do just that.

But hold on. Isn't paper evil? Isn't the fleet of 215,000 vehicles, driving 1.25 billion miles, using 400 million gallons of fuel a year, even evil-er?

As with so many other aspects of transitioning to a sustainable world, compromise is the order of the day.

What I'm contemplating is handwriting a letter to a pal (using the ancient art of cursive, no less; parents: is it true today's kids aren't taught cursive? I cringe to think of bubbly-print signatures). What I'm not contemplating is reverting back to the pre-online mentality—paying a dozen bills a month via paper; blindly accepting largely useless phone books; or conducting business in the always-days-behind world of binders and staples and whatever the word "collation" means.

So in order for this compromise to jive with my eco-centric sensibilities, I need to redouble my efforts in other arenas. I covered ending the scourge of junk mail a few months back. But if limiting carbon emissions is our highest concern, let's devote our energy to the real abuser: package shipping.

Online shopping is generally a great environmental choice—the reduction of an entire level of the distribution chain is a very significant energy savings, let alone the convenience factor. But there's a few strategies that can minimize the burden our shipping culture has on nature.

1) Reuse all your shipping materials—cardboard boxes, Styrofoam peanuts, etc. (I was aghast to learn cardboard occupies nearly 40 percent of our landfills!)

2) Re-evaluate your "need" to purchase in the first place. And take a look at local options like Craigslist or Freecycle before Amazon or eBay.

3) Heard of Click-n-Ship? It's the USPS service that enable consumers to print postage from their home, and schedule a pickup, cutting the wasteful and irritating trip to the post office.

And as for those thousands of vehicles driving billions of miles—yes, there's a mountain of efficiencies still to be addressed, as evidenced by the $8.5 billion loss in 2010, and the expected shuttering of nearly 2000 post offices this year (according to a list that circulated in January, South Jersey would be mostly spared, except for one in Camden and two in Trenton; Philadelphia may lose up to sixteen).

Radical changes are surely ahead for America's postal institution (cutting of Saturday services may be the least of it), but it won't change the need for the public to be the real driving force of taking those positive steps.

To get back to my friendly letter, it'll be written on salvaged paper (reclaimed from a Dumpster-destined desk found at a relative's home), enclosed in a homemade envelope, and scribed with squid ink and a pheasant quill, both of whom I sustainably raised in my own home.

Kidding on the last part. But point is, we don't need to cast the entire category of "mail" in a negative light, when increments along the way can be modified in a positive way.

Now to compose the letter. I'll tweet my progress as I go, and post the final product on Facebook when I'm done. What can I say—I'm not a caveman.

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