The Postal Service says that dropping Saturday mail delivery would cut greenhouse gas emissions by as much as 10 percent annually.
We claim we generate 5.3 million metric tons of greenhouse gas emissions from its direct operations, including the energy powering postal facilities and the fuel used in delivery trucks. By moving to five-day delivery, as the Postal Service has proposed, the agency would reduce its carbon footprint by between 315,000 and 500,000 metric tons annually, cutting emissions between 5.9 percent and 9.4 percent.
That would be equivalent to taking between 60,000 and 95,000 gasoline-powered cars off the road each year.
What do you think about this? Comment here.
15 comments:
My garbage, lawn waste, and recyle bin are only collected once a week. Just set up each carrier with one route the he/she delivers either Mon, Wed, Fri or Tues, Thurs, Sat. All carriers could then be temporary employees and you don't have to pay benefits. Everyone gets mail three times a week. Delivery three times a week would only require half of the current delivery vehicles.
With a few extra personnel, open the stations for evening hours and on weekends.
However, my trash collectors won't call 911 when they notice my garbage piling up. If I'm handicapped they won't collect unless I take my bin to the street. Mail security may be compromised because delivery personnel have no real stake in the company.
There a pros and cons to every delivery concept. Keep in mind that not every business is setup to make money. Our 3 brances of government (especially the legislative branch) don't make money. They provide a "communicty" service.
Therefore, we need to determine the main objectives of the Postal Service in this new age. Then, if necessary, change the USPS to address those objectives with the understanding we may be an important service that will never make money.
Mgmt is desperate to get 5 day delivery. Now they are playing the "green" card.
To be really green let's just shut down 7 days a week. Think of the all trees saved when all the paper from the mail is stopped.
Not the green house gas theory!! If we eliminate 2.5 million people from the earth, we would reverse the green house gases we are creating.....are we going to do that too??? :(
Keep the 6 day delivery and cut the uper management to 1 day a week and see how much more work really gets done!!
Let's keep 6-day delivery and just plant some trees!! That would be a green solution...literally!!
I think cutting upper management is our best bet lets even the odds instead of letting them have it all cut their salary and benefits then maybe that would leave a space for us if anything thats going to be the reason for the fall not one day delivery.
The "green" card is a powerful tool to manipulate public opinion, but we'd save a lot more money by eliminating and consolidating Area and District Offices. USPS has 8 Area offices and 74 District offices - and only 50 states! According to the Postal Inspector General, closing and consolidating some Areas and Districts could save
about $894 million over the next decade, with no impact to the public. Area and District operations do not provide services to the American public, but cost postal customers $1.5 billion, 3 times as much as it costs to maintain all small Post Offices.
I agree witht he idea to cut Areas and Districts. Why do we need more people telling us which reports to print and review when they don't "really" do anything about it. If we want to play the "green" card, cut out all the paper pushing (that isn't mail)and reduce the overhead. 5 day delivery is possible if you truly cut back everywhere.(especially processing which causes Mondays to be a nightmare (like the day after the last holiday). We can't continue to keep post offices open and provide PO Box service and window service on Saturday. Stay open later during the week when the building is already heated/cooled and give customers the opportunity to do business with us after work.
I recognize that 5-day delivery is necessary -- for financial reasons -- but am not happy about it. Nevertheless, the Green aspect is a positive.
Go to 5 day delivery, and cut upper managment, and cut the pay scale down with less benifits, and do it ASAP. If you do one at a time it won't make a diffrence, you'll be caught up in the political/union tape. Save the Postal Service and do it right the first time.
Going to 5 day delivery is now a question of jobs or environment, as there would be over 60,000 postal employees in the unemployment line as a result of 5 day delivery implementation. I'd rather have a job than one less day of bad air.
I say "Show me the numbers" on the study that was conducted. If delivery is cut on Saturday it will only increase the volume of mail received on Monday and will create the necessity for extra help to be called in on Monday to make up for Saturday. Keep the delivery the way it is currently. Upper management staff was increased by 400% over the past year, this may be where we need to look at making cuts. Do away with the bonuses for upper management, their numbers would not look as good as they do without the people in the offices making those numbers a reality.
If they are concerned about the environment, make recycling a reality in every office not just those with access to recycling. There are a lot of offices where recycling is not available, think of the paper that could be used for alternative energy sources if all offices had the opportunity to recycle.
I hope we can go to 5 day delivery as soon as possible. The argument that it creates too much mail for Monday doesn't hold water as we already hardly get any mail on Saturdays to deliver. Cutting back on management, facilities, and salaries is also necessary. The downfall of the Postal Service will be the greed of the Postal Unions.
In this District, we have employees who spend 90% of their time running a few pieces of missent mail here and there and everywhere. One maintenance person told me he drove to 3 different offices with missent mail, and couldn't reach the 4th as it would be more than his 8-hour day. A clerk from another office spends about the same amount of time running mail to other offices. Besides the fact these people are getting wages for running mostly BBM, they're contributing to the fuel consumption. Is this the smartest use of our employees and vehicles? And while I'm on the subject of USPS money-wasting ideas: why do they have so many people detailed from one state to a detail in another state/district? USPS pays them travel/ lodging/ perdiem... what a huge waste of our finances, when we can't even buy a pencil for our office without prior approval!
Five day delivery is very possible in my town. It would save $5000 a year in EMA alone! Take that times 5000 similiar offices and you are talking $25 million dollars in savings in EMA alone. This idea of universal service is out dated and not cost effective. When this idea was started, we were part of the federal government...then someone began to see us as a cash cow...and here we are! If we are going to hold to the universal service idea, then take us off the "quasi" government position and put us back under the federal government. How many other federal activites generarte income to be self sustaining?? None that I can think of. Also, take a look at your wages and compare them to your state's average income.....most of us are way above that. Institue a 25% pay cut across the board or go to pay based on geographical areas.
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