Feb. 5, 2008 - Publishing heavyweights Hearst Corporation, Pratt Industries, Time Warner Cable have joined forces to boost magazine recycling in the Big Apple. The publishers have partnered with various city agencies to launch ReMix ("Recycling Magazines is Excellent!"), a public education campaign aimed at increasing residential recycling of magazines and catalogs, in New York City.

Beginning next week, ReMix promotions will appear across New York City, in full-page public service advertisements in consumer magazines including TIME, Cosmopolitan, Country Living and Sports Illustrated as well as on buses and subways, in movie theaters, on cable television, and in other outlets. The total value of paid placements and in-kind donations for the ReMix campaign will top $3 million, according to program organizers.

"More and more people are talking about these questions every day," David Refkin, director of sustainability development at Time Inc, tells Advertising Age. "And they're going to be asking questions of the people they do business with. 'What are you doing?' 'Are you part of the problem or are you part of the solution?'"

ReMix is a collaborative partnership between Verso Paper, Time Inc, and the National Recycling Council. The campaign was piloted in 2004, after a study found that while 95% of all unsold newsstand magazines are recycled by newsstands and publishers, only about 17% of sold magazines are recycled.

The high recycling rate for unsold magazines doesn't tell the whole story, however. Advertising Age points out that publishers typically print three copies for every copy sold at the newsstand - an environmental double-whammy in terms of both raw materials and greenhouse gas emissions from shipping all those extra magazines. Some retailers, including Wal-Mart, are limiting the number of magazine titles they carry in an effort to cut waste.

It's unclear what will happen with consumers start asking questions about the environmental impact of all those unsold magazines.

"I think that focus will eventually come around to direct mail, catalogs and magazines," says Paul Rossi, The Economist's publisher for North America. "The reality is we cut down trees to make the product."

Prior to the launch of the New York City campaign, ReMix pilot programs were successfully conducted in Boston, Mass.; Prince George's County, Md.; Milwaukee, Wis; and Portland, Ore.