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As a Londoner, I find it hard to sympathise with defenders of the postal service. The evidence of the Royal Mail's indifference to wastage and inefficiency is there for all to see in the form of red rubber bands littering our streets.
I'm acutely aware of this because I have a five-year-old and a three-year-old and, like all small children in London, they are obsessed with collecting them. As soon as we leave the house, they are immediately on their hands and knees, crawling through the gutter, picking up all the rubber bands discarded by our local postman. It is a rare day when they find fewer than 10.
Ironically, the reason the Royal Mail switched from colourless rubber bands to red ones four years ago was to make them easier to spot. That way, if a postman dropped one by accident he could easily bend down and retrieve it.
This is almost touching in its naivety. Does the Royal Mail really believe that its workers drop the rubber bands by accident? As any fool knows, postmen toss them aside as soon as they've taken them off a bundle of letters.
I called the CWU, the postmen's union, to see if they were willing to offer any defence of this practice. Not surprisingly, they didn't take the matter very seriously. "To be perfectly honest, it's a drop in the ocean compared to the other issues the Royal Mail faces," said a spokesperson.
I accept that it may be trivial in the grand scheme of things, but postmen are hardly going to win the public over to their cause - and stop the Government's plans to part-privatise the postal service - if they continue to behave so irresponsibly. Surely, public-sector workers have a duty to discourage littering, rather than contribute to it? And wouldn't a part-privatised postal service be a little more circumspect about throwing away materials that could easily be re-used?
If you're a parent of young children, there's also a health issue. Seeing my son and daughter scrabbling around for rubber bands in the gutters of Acton wouldn't make me so nervous if Ealing council was a little more conscientious about keeping the streets clean. Our road resembles a battlefield in the aftermath of a bacterial attack.
When I called the Royal Mail, a spokesman muttered something about the rubber bands being "biodegradable", then hung up. If that's true, I've yet to see evidence of it.
My two children are fond of stretching the bands round the front of their scooters and they've now got so many they can barely manoeuvre them down the street.
Postman Pat, if you're serious about rallying opposition to the Government's plans, please stop throwing litter on our streets. I would happily support your campaign if you demonstrated a bit more civic responsibility.
Reader views (1)
It is most certainly an eyesore to see the streets and pathways littered with red rubber bands from bundles of letters as they are delivered by our postal workers.
There is most certainly a potential danger to animals from picking up and eating/swallowing these bands.
I have found an alternative use for them.........I collect them whenever I see them and use them for tying up the tops of my rubbish bags. If as the Post Office claim they are bio-degradable they should in the fullness of time do just that.
Not that long ago the Post Office Chairman was on Radio 2 apologising for the band fiasco therefore they are only too well aware of the stigma it causes.
How much trouble can it be to take off an elastic band form a bundle of letters and put it back in the huge postal bags that the postmen and women carry around with them. Surely the weight of elastic bands is preferable to the weight of the letters and packages!
- Alan Browning, Portsmouth. UK., 06/04/2009 08:36
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