Hearst Magazines Launches Company-Wide Initiative Aimed At Encouraging Magazine Readers To Recycle Magazines They Read

Hearst Magazines President Cathleen P. Black today announced a new company-wide environmental initiative aimed at encouraging magazine readers to recycle the magazines that they read. Beginning with July issues, Hearst’s 19 U.S. titles will begin carrying the “Please Recycle This Magazine · Remove Inserts or Samples Before Recycling” logo. Hearst is the first magazine company to adopt this initiative on a portfolio-wide basis.

“Hearst’s commitment to the environment is not just about building the first ’green’ building in New York City,” said Black. “Being a leader on the environmental front and making our announcement today is a great way to reinforce that message with our 73 million monthly readers, advertisers, retailers and wholesalers, and vendors. Surprisingly, today fewer than 20% of Americans are recycling their magazines at home. We believe that publishing the logo is an important step in communicating our support of recycling efforts. This is just one of a number of environmental initiatives that Hearst Magazines and Hearst Corporation have undertaken.”

The Please Recycle logo will be prominently displayed in Hearst magazines either on the masthead page or in the table of contents, and Editors-in-Chief will promote the appearance of the logo in their various Editor’s Letters and/or elsewhere in their magazines.

The Please Recycle campaign was recently announced by the Magazine Publishers of America (MPA) and is an industry-wide public education campaign the MPA is undertaking with its member publications to get readers to recycle their magazines when they are done enjoying them.

Today only about 20% of magazines are recycled from the home, even though at least two-thirds of the population has access to magazine recycling in their communities and curbside. Increasing magazine recycling will help fuel the increasing demand for recovered fiber and further reduce demand on the world’s forests.

Among Hearst’s accomplishments on the environmental front, the most recognized are the company’s completion of Hearst Tower, the first gold LEED certified building in New York (honored by Global Green USA); partnering with the State of California, California Rangeland Trust and American Land Conservancy in 2005 to form the largest conservation easement in history (82,000 acres) in San Simeon, Calif.; and participating in philanthropic tree planning through National Arbor Day Foundation and New York Restoration Project. Riverkeeper, vice chaired by Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., will honor Hearst on April 19 for its support of the organization.