Postal Service Honored With White House Closing the Circle Awards for Biodiesel Fuel and Recycling Programs

WASHINGTON, June 13 -- The U.S. Postal Service was honored Monday with a 2006 Closing the Circle (CTC) Award for its use of biodiesel fuel to reduce consumption of petroleum. The agency also received a CTC Honorable Mention for its total waste management program. The awards were bestowed by the Office of the Federal Environmental Executive at a ceremony at the White House. The CTC Awards recognize outstanding achievements of federal employees and their facilities for efforts that result in significant contributions to environmental stewardship.

"The Postal Service is committed to reducing petroleum consumption and minimizing its environmental footprint," said Walt O'Tormey, Vice President, Engineering. "It's an honor to be recognized for our efforts, and I am truly proud of our vehicle engineering, environmental, and supply management teams for their hard work and commitment to this issue."

Han Dinh, Program Director of Vehicle Engineering, was present to accept the CTC award on behalf of the Postal Service. "Our research into the technical and operational implications of biodiesel use in motor vehicles continues to generate important data that is being shared with regulators, automotive engineers, equipment manufacturers, and other stakeholders," said Dinh. "Such information is critical to the acceptance and widespread use of biodiesel fuels by the general public." Biodiesel is a domestically produced, renewable fuel that can be manufactured from a variety of natural vegetable oils, animal fats, or recycled yellow grease (waste fryer-oil from restaurants.)

The Postal Service's Total Waste Management program was created to develop best practices in recycling in order to facilitate recycling efforts, decrease the costs of waste disposal, and offset any remaining disposal costs with revenue generated from recovered materials that are marketed directly to end- user manufacturers.

Since 1775, the United States Postal Service and its predecessor, the Post Office Department, have connected friends, families, neighbors, and businesses by mail. An independent federal agency that visits more than 144 million homes and businesses every day, the Postal Service is the only service provider delivering to every address in the nation. It receives no taxpayer dollars for routine operations, but derives its operating revenues solely from the sale of postage, products, and services. With annual revenues of $70 billion, it is the world's leading provider of mailing and delivery services, offering some of the most affordable postage rates in the world. The U.S. Postal Service delivers more than 46 percent of the world's mail volume -- some 212 billion letters, advertisements, periodicals, and packages a year -- and serves seven million customers each day at its 37,000 retail locations nationwide.