[maxgallery id=”43007″]By Alex Young – December 11, 2015
BELLMAWR — The United States Postal Service processing plant in Bellmawr serves as the main center for every postal delivery in South Jersey.
“Think of it as the hub, and every associated post office is like the spokes,” said Ray Daiutolo Sr., Communications Programs Specialist for the USPS. “All of the incoming and outgoing mail from those offices comes through this facility.”
The 250,000-square-foot processing center handles all the mail from the ZIP codes that start with 080 through 084. That means mail for more than 150 ZIP codes comes though the plant.
Serving that many communities means that the facility is incredibly busy. Senior Plant Manager Dave Robinson estimated that on a normal Monday, they process 400,000 to 500,000 pieces of loose mail.
However, with the holiday season well under way and Christmas just two weeks away, the plant has already seen a massive spike in its volume for both loose letters and packages, and Robinson only expects that volume to go up in the next two weeks.
“This Monday coming up, we’re expecting maybe 1.2 million pieces and the next Monday about the same,” he said. “When Christmas falls on a Friday, people think they can wait a little longer to send stuff out. So we’re expecting the next two weeks to be very heavy volume.”
In order to make sure that all that mail gets to where it needs to go, the facility relies heavily on automation. Robinson said a lot of the mail that comes through is never actually touched by a human. The mail can even be stacked and ordered for each delivery route.