A study from the U.S. Postal Service recorded that only 1.8% of household waste is from advertising direct mail messages and catalogues.  Furthermore, recently, the number of households that participate in recycling have increased by a substantial amount; with only about 150,000 in the late 90’s to more than 1.21 million now.

Today about 70% of households are recycling — so, the chances that your direct mail piece will be recycled continues to grow.  When looking at the facts of direct mail, you will see that direct mail, in fact, is environmentally conscious.

Just as it is important to turn your computer and T.V. off to conserve energy and reduce your carbon footprint, the same is true for print and paper.  If you choose to recycle the paper and the industry continues to plant new trees and use recycled material to produce paper and print, we can continue to keep direct mail a ‘green’ marketing medium.

Not only is direct mail an environmentally conscious medium, it is also growing in popularity.  In a recent DMA 2012 statistical Fact Book report, it was shown that 18 percent of people between the ages of 22-24 would respond to a direct mail piece.  This statistic is up from last year’s report.

Maybe it is because email inboxes are beginning to get to cluttered or maybe it’s because of the difference it makes to actually hold a message in your hand, either way, people are reading – and responding – to direct mail messages.

Timothy Freeman
President
Print & Graphic Communications Association