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UPS’s Reusable Next Day Air® Envelope is one bright idea - an envelope designed to be used twice. It’s also a win-win proposition: more convenient for customers and better for the environment.

"UPS’s leadership in introducing reusable packaging into the express mail business is commendable, and promises both environmental and customer benefits," said Elizabeth Sturcken, project leader at the Alliance for Environmental Innovation. The Alliance, a project of the Environmental Defense Fund and The Pew Charitable Trusts, worked with UPS to explore environmental improvements in the company’s air express packaging.

Some industries - like law, financial, real estate, and insurance - require a lot of back-and-forth correspondence. UPS created the reusable envelope with these customers in mind. For example, an attorney drafts a contract and sends it to a client for a signature. The client signs the contract and sends it back to the attorney. With the Reusable Next Day Air Envelope, only one envelope is needed for the entire transaction - curbing waste and reducing the use of energy and natural resources.

The envelope - easily identified by the green "Reusable" oval - is easy to use. Customers fill out the address label and send the package as they would any other. When recipients are ready to return the documents, they simply attach another address label and reseal the envelope.

"The UPS reusable envelope is a good example of how the industry is constantly finding innovative ways to produce packages that meet our customers’ needs," said Marla Donahue, former president of the Paperboard Packaging Council.

The overnight shipping industry uses more than one billion envelopes and boxes each year. Here's how UPS’s reusable envelope helps improve the environment:

• The envelope is manufactured using a bleach-free process and is made of 100 percent recycled fiber, 80 percent of which is post-consumer. This saves more than 12,000 trees per year.
• Solid waste is reduced by an estimated 440 tons a year.
• Annual energy savings could light nearly 20,000 light bulbs for an entire year.
• By reducing each envelope's weight by 10 percent, energy costs for manufacture and delivery are substantially decreased.

Businesses benefit from the reusable envelope because they do not have to send another envelope in the original mailing for documents that must be returned. That saves time and storage space for shipping supplies. They can also provide a service to their customers by filling out a return address label and including it.

• UPS Corporate Public Relations
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