Seniors, don’t burn that college mail!

Any standardized test-taker who marks “yes” on the College Board’s “Student Search Service” option will soon find his or her mailbox flooded with college mail — advertisements to apply and invitations to visit campuses. Although the many “<name>, we want you!” messages may seem personal and reassuring, these colleges’ self-promotions are a major waste of paper and ink.

Unfortunately, instead of opting to recycle this college “spam,” some students have welcomed the idea of having a college mail bonfire. Burning college mail, however, converts reusable wood pulp into ash, carbon dioxide (a greenhouse gas) and other harmful pollutants.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the “backyard burning” of paper products can “increase the risk of heart disease, aggravate respiratory ailments such as asthma and emphysema and cause rashes, nausea or headaches.” Burning college mail not only is a menace to the environment; it also hurts other people around the fire.

To those seniors who have finished their college applications and thus have little need to retain their college mail, I have a better idea: just recycle it. If someone wants to feel the thrilling excitement of destroying the mail, he or she can rip, cut or even shred it. (Amazon has paper shredders for under $100!)

This problem also rests on some colleges’ insistence to send out physical mail. In order to save paper, these schools can easily and cheaply send the same advertisements via email. We live in the 21st century; for the sake of the environment, we need to use our electronic resources to save our natural ones.

As for the old SAT prep books … If we have already purchased and used these books, we may as well pass them on to future test-takers, to reduce the paper and ink put in to produce more. A person can even sell the books to their friends to make some extra money. Why would someone want to burn or throw away money, anyway?

A bonfire — a symbolic burning of the ruined hopes and dreams lost during college application season — may seem tempting, but it’s a misguided idea.