Published by Vanessa Brunner under Events

In a consumer driven world, it’s easy for the most focused eco-expert to lose perspective. Amidst the whirlwind of organic cotton, vegan shoes, and bamboo sunglasses, it’s important to stay grounded and remember why we do what we do, and what it is that we’re fighting for.

The most recent San Francisco ForestEthics event, benefiting the “Do Not Mail” campaign, was just the thing to bring me back.

The ForestEthics 100 Million Trees Party took place at The W Hotel in San Francisco. Over 500 guests came to support this vital campaign.

On the left, Gina Milano and ForestEthics Board Member Nadine Weil pose for the cameras. On the right, Supervisor Mirkarimi poses with Nadine Weil. (Photos by Drew Altizer)

ForestEthics, which is based in San Francisco, is a non-profit group that truly believes that people have the power to create positive change in their environment. More importantly, corporations have this power too, as well as a responsibility. Forest Ethics does not see corporations as obstacles, but instead as possibilities to advocate change on a widespread level.

To date, ForestEthics has protected over 67 million acres of forests, and changed the environmental practices of companies such as Victoria’s Secret, Staples, Office Depot, and Williams-Sonoma.

Guests included Annabelle Gurwitch of Planet Green’s “Wa$ted,” Producer Peter Glatzer from Reconcile Productions (“Alter Eco” with Adrian Grenier), and Planet Green star Darren Moore. Co-chaired by board members Nadine Weil and Marika Holmgren, ForestEthics Executive Director Todd Paglia was also in attendance.

Supervisor Ross Mirkarimi, Darren Moore, Annabelle Gurwitch, David de Rothschild (photo by Drew Altizer)

The “Do Not Mail” campaign is one of those things you look at and think “WHY hasn’t this happened sooner?” Junk mail is such a mundane, irritating part of life that everyone has to deal with, but very few realize the environmental implications of this massive amount of waste. Luckily, ForestEthics is paying attention, and trying to do something about it.

Annually, Americans recieve 100 billion pieces of junk mail, which requires over 100 million trees to produce (thus the name of the party).  This process gives off as many global warming emissions as 3.7 million cars.

From ForestEthics.org

Pretty terrifying, huh?

To top it all off, the tree harvesting that occurs because of junk mail production often happens in endangered forests that play a huge role in the fight against global warming. ForestEthics names the Canadian Boreal Forest and the Indonesian Tropical Forest as two forests that are affected by junk mail. The Boreal Forest stores more carbon than any other ecosystem on Earth, but it is logged at a rate of 2 acres per minute per day.

From ForestEthics.org

If that doesn’t motivate you to sign the petition and start recycling your junk mail, consider this: Junk mail in the United States accounts for 30% of all delivered mail in the world. But 44% of it ends up in landfills, completely unopened.

Click here to sign the petition for a “Do Not Mail” registry (much like the “Do Not Call” list for telemarketing) and here to read more about ForestEthics and support their causes.

Party photos are courtesy of Drew Altizer:

DrewAltizer.com

More photos from the event

(All information/statistics is from ForestEthics.com)