The U.S. Postal Service, Environmental Policy and Programs, commissioned this life cycle inventory (LCI) model and analysis to examine the energy consumption, waste generation, and pollutant emissions associated with mail in the United States. An initial version of the model is complete, and enables, for the first time, a comparative analysis of the environmental aspects (e.g., pollutant emissions, solid waste generation) of different mail products. The model also allows the quantification of
portions of the overall environmental footprint of the entire Postal Service.