San Diego Drowning in Junk Mail

By Ed Joyce / Reporter, KPBS Public Broadcasting

Published April 22, 2008 at 12:09 PM PDT

This story was published more than 16 years ago.

Junk mail sent to San Diego city residents each year would cover the entire football field at Qualcomm Stadium - 45 feet deep. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce has more.

Junk mail sent to San Diego city residents each year would cover the entire football field at Qualcomm Stadium - 45 feet deep. KPBS Reporter Ed Joyce has more.

Mailboxes are filled every day with advertising circulars, credit card offers, political flyers and other junk. It's all part of the four-million tons of paper mail Americans get every year. People living in the city of San Diego are sent 19,000 tons of mostly unrequested mail each year.

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Gal: San Diego is literally drowning in paper junk mail.

That's Steve Gal. He's with a San Diego company that provides online services to stop junk mail.

Gal: Nationally it's a 100-million trees a year to produce junk mail. That's mail, you know, we talk about junk mail, that's mail that people don't want.

San Diego's share of that is 485,000 trees.

Gal says there's an environmental cost even if the paper is recycled since printing, shipping and transportation uses energy.

He says one way to reduce the pounds of junk mail is to use free online services that allow people to remove their names from mailing lists.
Ed Joyce, KPBS News.

Ed Joyce

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Ed Joyce was the environment reporter and afternoon news anchor for KPBS-FM. Before joining KPBS, he worked as an editor/columnist with Copley News Service in San Diego. Ed has an extensive background in newspaper, radio, web and TV journalism. After graduating with a B.A. in Communications from the University of Washington in Seattle, Ed began a career in broadcast journalism. His work has included stints in public broadcasting, commercial broadcasting and education -- working as an affiliate professor of communication and reporter at the University of Idaho and Washington State University in Pullman, Wash. During the past 20 years he has worked in radio, TV and print as a news reporter, anchor, writer, editor and producer. Along the way he has won numerous awards for general news reporting, newswriting, feature and issue reporting and breaking news reporting from The Associated Press, The Society of Professional Journalists, San Diego Press Club and other organizations. During the mid-1990s, while working for Oregon Public Broadcasting, he was a frequent contributor to National Public Radio, including a feature report on the memorial service for 14 U.S. Forest Service "hotshots" who died fighting a wildfire in Colorado (the crew was based in a central Oregon town). He’s also filed reports with Marketplace, KQED’s California Report and Climate Watch and with national and regional networks throughout the United States. At KPBS, Ed continues his contributions to National Public Radio and other national and regional news organizations. He has won awards from the Society of Professional Journalists and San Diego Press Club for his environmental reporting at KPBS-FM-TV and for producing and anchoring radio newscasts. In 2007 he was selected a National Press Foundation fellow for Understanding Violent Weather II program. The seminars were held at the National Weather Center in Norman, Okla. In 2008 he spoke at a UC San Diego conference on U.S. National Security as part of the school’s Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation. Ed led a discussion with the 18 foreign government officials and academics about the political debate over climate change. In 2010, Ed was elected to a three-year term on the board of the San Diego Press Club.

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