BUFFALO (WBEN) - 'Tis the season of capitalism, as the United States Postal Service anticipates that it will handle 800 million packages between Thanksgiving and New Year's Day.
Of the 800 million total packages, roughly 2.5 million will be sorted at the 358,000 square-foot Buffalo Main Post Office located on William Street. One extremely timely addition for this peak season is the Small Parcel Sorting System, which is designed to sort packages at a rate of 6,000 per hour.
Here's a look at the Small Parcel Sorting Machine at the Buffalo Main Post Office on William St. It's making its Christmas debut this year and is expected to process more than 80,000 packages per day during the holiday season! @NewsRadio930 pic.twitter.com/OHnXXSw43u
— Brendan Keany (@BrendanKeany) December 18, 2019"Average daily volume about 50,000 packages, but during the holidays, we're processing between 85,000 to 90,000 packages per day," said Plant Manager Rhonda Benton. "We're expected, over the holiday season, to process 2.5 million - Western New York District, which encompasses zip codes that start with '140' to '149,' Rochester and Buffalo, we're projected to do 9 million packages over this holiday season."
Erika Filipski is an extremely enthusiastic mail handler at the plant, and she's even getting into the holiday spirit by dressing up as an elf. She's excited about the machine's production.
"This new machine will help us with the additional package volume, as package volume continues to grow," said Benton. "It's grown at a rate of about 5% from last year for the Postal Service, and with that 5%, we have maximized the equipment in our other facilities. Having this machine here in Buffalo will allow us to process and deliver packages even more efficiently and quickly than we did in the past.
"Any local customer who brings their packages in prior to our delivery units closing, that mail, if it's going to our areas, we're processing the same day for delivery the next day."
