WOW interesting fact!

Did you know? Twenty percent less CO2 is used per year by a person reading a daily printed newspaper versus a person reading web-based news for 30 minutes a day.

Source: International Paper, "Down to Earth" Environmental Issues & Trends.

Ancient Navajo Prayer

When my daughter was in 3rd grade, we did a report on the Navajo Americans. We ran across an Ancient Navajo prayer while doing our research. One of my closest friends is Navajo and he would frequently refer to "Mother Earth" this helps explain what he meant. This is also one of our inspirations for the Green Print Alliance, enjoy: I see the Earth. I am looking at her and smile, because She makes me happy. The Earth, looking back at me is smiling too. May I walk happily and lightly on Her. Ancient Navajo prayer www.GreenPrintAlliance.com If you re-post or use this prayer, please credit this blog and use with respect.

Custom Watermarks

The watermark is defined as, “A design, pattern, or symbol impressed in paper while it is being formed, appearing as a lighter or darker area when the paper is held up to light.” Everyone has seen watermarks, but very few seem to think of them when they design their prestige pieces or corporate packages, and that’s unfortunate. Watermarks intrigue readers, engage interest, and serve as a constant, quiet extension of your corporate image. As such, they are smart marketing. For centuries, watermarks have been formed by passing the paper under a wire cylinder called a “dandy roll” while the paper is still 90% water. The dandy roll causes fiber variation, and this variation is called the watermark. It lasts as long as the paper lasts, yet doesn’t interfere with its use in any way. It is a sign of quality that carries the prestige of this time-honored process. Now, a new process called “Custommark” creates the same impression at a fraction of the cost. Features of the Custommark process include smaller minimum orders (as low as 100 lbs.); lower cost than the dandy roll process; in-paper proof before the order is filled; and fast turnaround.
Feel free to contact me for more information about this process.

Opacity affects readability

Opacity is the characteristic of paper that prevents printing on one side from showing through to the other. Opacity affects readability. High opacity helps readers concentrate and reduces confusion and eye strain, and also prevents photos, screen tints, or reverses on one side of a sheet from showing through to the other side. Many characteristics affect opacity. Generally speaking, thick paper is more opaque than thin, coated more opaque than uncoated, rough more opaque than smooth, and dark more opaque than light. Swatchbooks usually don’t include opacity ratings; it is best for you to decide whether a sheet is opaque enough for the job by inspecting it rather than knowing its rating. You can increase opacity without increasing basis weight by using slightly darker paper. Often you can change from white to ivory or light gray without increasing costs, and this strategy might raise quality substantially in the case of a directory or catalog.

Another Reason to Support Direct Mail-It's Green

This artical is taken from Printing News. I feel very important information. With the addition of the Green Print Alliance http://www.greenprintalliance.com/ the impact is even less:

Additional data is needed to pinpoint mail's true environmental impact, but it's in the range of 50 grams of CO2 per piece, according to the first study ever on the issue. The new research demonstrates that leisure and other everyday activities—watching television, taking a trip, or running a clothes dryer, dishwasher, or refrigerator—account for most of a consumers' total carbon footprint.
The Environmental Impact of Mail: A Baseline, published by Pitney Bowes, is a comprehensive review of existing or published data on the value chain of mail from a variety of sources including regulatory agencies, not-for-profits, and U.S. and international postal services. Using these sources, it establishes a baseline of mail's environmental impact, compares it with the CO2 output of everyday human activities, and recommends a set of key "next steps" for the mailing industry to be even more environmentally responsible.
This new study on mail is published at a time when all industries are under intense pressure to take more action on climate change and lessen their environmental impact. The individual impact of mail on the environment has been inflated by misguided environmentalist groups and proponents of a Do Not Mail registry, which aims to dismantle how and which types of mail are delivered to consumer's doorsteps.
The ramifications of this registry—which would eliminate approximately 8.4 million jobs nationwide and halt the $1 trillion economic activity of the mailing and printing industry—have not been considered. This new research by Pitney Bowes enables individuals, companies, and industry associations to have a public dialogue based on fact, rather than perception. It contributes to a centralized and standardized set of data that is necessary to calculate mail's environmental impact.
According to the study, the life cycle of letter mail can be divided into six stages: mail design; manufacturing the writing paper and envelopes; production of the letter; distribution of the letter; use; and the disposal of the letter. All six of these stages should be examined in the calculation of mail's environmental impact. Although this study examines the CO2 emissions of mail across all six of these dimensions, the primary focus is in the fourth stage of mail's life cycle, which is the post's responsibility to collect, sort, and deliver mail to customers.
There are two areas within the post's CO2 emissions that are crucial to measuring and understanding their carbon footprints: facility resources, and transportation resources.
Facility resources include the postal retail and mail handling facilities, and sorting equipment, primarily in the form of heat and electricity.
Transportation resources include the fuel emissions associated with the collection, inter-postal facility transportation, and final transportation to the customer. The importance of minimizing carbon emissions in these areas are reinforced as global posts are currently working toward improved efficiency in vehicle fleets and buildings. The U.S. Postal Service is also working on a comprehensive Life Cycle Inventory that will introduce new data on the carbon footprint of mail.
In the study, initial estimates of CO2 per mail piece are used to compare mail with everyday household activities. How does mail stack up? Consider this: running a single refrigerator for a year is equivalent to the creation and delivery of 5,000 letters; taking a two-minute shower is equivalent to receiving 40 letters; running an electric water heater for a year is about the same as 20,000 letters received and the list goes on.
Other Initiatives
In addition to mail's small environmental impact, it is made from an increasingly renewable resource, trees, and can be recycled. In fact, sustainable forests and their related products are increasing in developed countries, despite growth in population and economic activity.
In 2005, 36 percent of direct mail in the United States was recycled, increasing by about 8 percent in 2006 to 39 percent. The recycling of mail not only reduces landfill waste, but also potentially reduces energy requirements and emissions at paper mills. Increasing the percentage of recycled direct mail and reducing the amount of waste mail created are important considerations for the mailing industry.
The mailing industry is also pursuing many initiatives to further reduce the carbon footprint associated with the production and delivery of mail. Among the activities currently being undertaken are using more environmentally responsible mailing materials, better address quality efforts that will reduce Undeliverable-As-Addressed mail, increased recycling, and energy and fuel conservation initiatives for buildings and vehicles.
In addition, the Direct Marketing Association is leading an industry-wide initiative, the "Green 15," which mandates 15 baseline business practices in five areas of the life cycle of mail to improve mailers' environmental performance. The DMA's Commitment to the Consumer Choice program also offers a Mail Preference Service through which consumers can select or stop (opt in or out) receiving promotional prospecting mail at home. This service provides consumers with an effective way to receive more of the mail that really matters to them, and less of the mail they do not want, reducing the creation of waste mail.
Overall, the mailing industry has adopted many initiatives to reduce mail's carbon footprint, but must expand and collaborate on environmentally responsible efforts to further reduce the environmental impact associated with all six life cycle stages of letter mail. Some key steps to follow for the mailing industry in this area include:

Establish mechanisms to share best practices and establish standards for the industry.
Continue to study CO2 emissions and other environmental impacts of mail.
Identify opportunities to maximize the utilization of the vast infrastructure of the posts and private carriers and suppliers to benefit the environment.
Address consumer behavior as a need to improve recycling and the understanding of sustainable forestry.
Further educate mailers and consumers regarding the relative environmental impacts of mail (versus other activities) to correct uninformed and inaccurate perceptions.
The Environmental Impact of Mail: A Baseline, is a starting point for further research. It will be continuously updated and refined as the mailing industry continues its progress in the area of environmental responsibility.
The importance and value of mail as a critical service and communications provider, as well as its interdependency with national and state economies, makes mail's sustainability an important and relevant issue, not just for the industry, but for the well-being of today's society. With this new research, the facts on mail's true environmental impact are available www.pb.com/mailimpact and should be considered in discussing the future state of the mailing industry.

Paul Robbertz is the vice president of Environment Health and Safety for Pitney Bowes Inc.

Going Green? Are you sure?

A friendly competitor told us they had a client who was no longer going to order brochures about it's services to mail to clients because it was "going green" and emailing them a PDF instead. This is, of course nonsense. They believe that they can save the cost of printing and distribution while bragging about being green at the same time, it won't work! First, the likelihood of their PDF's being opened and read by the recipient has dramatically fallen because the cover email is now one of the hundreds received every day by their clients, most of which are captured by spam filters or deleted before opening. We would think that only a tiny fraction of the intended audience will actually open the PDF, print it out and or actually read it. So, the results of the piece are totally lost. Second, the "green" argument (saving trees and landfills) blithely rises above the reality that the trees that are grown for wood pulp are grown like a crop, just like wheat or corn and consume nothing but energy from the sun. The paper that is produced from them is the most recyclable of products and if it winds up in a landfill, is completely biodegradable. On the other hand, the servers that operate the interned to send those billions and billions of emails every day consume enormous amounts of electricity generated largely by the burning of fossil fuels that send out thousands of tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.
source: PIASC


Fact, most consumers prefer to receive offers via USPS/mail, and direct mail continues to produce the best return of advertising dollars.

Equivalent Weight

While different paper types have different basic sizes, papers can still be compared by using equivalent weight. In this chart a 24 pound bond has the equivalent weight as 60 pound offset.

With all the new digital equipment coming out lately things are trending toward Metric, grams/sq meter (gsm) see the last column to find its equivalent. I know, it was all very confusing to me too. Until I received this chart from one of my vendors. Give me a call or send me a message if you'd like me to e-mail it to you.