Meg Rowe Salem Jan 12, 2012 13:33 pm

Hello All,
We are a not-for-profit recycling processor (among other business enterprises) and provide an annual letter to our recycling customers to quantify the environmental benefits of the waste they diverted through recycling, e.g., "You recycled 30,401 pounds of waste paper...[and] you saved the equivalent of 321.61 trees that would have otherwise been harvested for paper pulp."
We are in the process of updating the letter and are looking for a good "energy saved" equivalent. We currently convert the avoided energy costs into gallons of gasoline, but would like to know of other energy equivalents that might be more meaningful to a recycling customer. FYI, we also report equivalencies in terms of water saved, GHG emissions avoided and hauling costs.
Thank you in advance for your thoughts and comments.


Meg Rowe
Sustainability Advisor
Garten Services, Inc.
United States
www.garten.org