Royal Mail rubber band
Encyclopedia
A Royal Mail rubber band is a small red elastic loop used by the state-owned postal delivery service in the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. In the course of its work, the Royal Mail
Royal Mail
Royal Mail is the government-owned postal service in the United Kingdom. Royal Mail Holdings plc owns Royal Mail Group Limited, which in turn operates the brands Royal Mail and Parcelforce Worldwide...

 consumes nearly 1 billion rubber band
Rubber band
A rubber band is a short length of rubber and latex formed in the shape of a loop and is commonly used to hold multiple objects together...

s per annum to tie together bundles of letters at sorting offices. In the 2000s, complaints about Royal Mail rubber bands littering the streets of Britain have given rise to ongoing press interest in this minor cultural phenomenon.

Volumetrics

In a response to a Freedom of Information Act
Freedom of Information Act 2000
The Freedom of Information Act 2000 is an Act of Parliament of the Parliament of the United Kingdom that creates a public "right of access" to information held by public authorities. It is the implementation of freedom of information legislation in the United Kingdom on a national level...

 request made by Steve Woods to the Royal Mail in December 2008, the company disclosed that it used the following numbers of rubber bands in each of the three years from 2005/6-2007/8:
  • 2005/06 - 753,480,000
  • 2006/07 - 825,750,000
  • 2007/08 - 871,695,000
  • 2009/10 - 760,000,000


According to the Daily Record
Daily Record (Scotland)
The Daily Record is a Scottish tabloid newspaper based in Glasgow. It had been the best-selling daily paper in Scotland for many years with a paid circulation in August 2011 of 307,794 . It is now outsold by its arch-rival the Scottish Sun which in September 2010 had a circulation of 339,586 in...

, costs for rubber bands in the 2007/8 period were £982,677. Figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph
The Daily Telegraph is a daily morning broadsheet newspaper distributed throughout the United Kingdom and internationally. The newspaper was founded by Arthur B...

showed that between 2007 and 2011, spending on elastic bands increased by 40%. In 2009/2010, the numbers used equate to one rubber band being used for every 28 letters that the Royal Mail delivered.

Complaints

Complaint and comment on the theme of discarded rubber bands is a recurring focus of media interest. A Times
The Times
The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

story in 2006—Posties' red rubber bands stretch public's patience—is fairly typical. It notes a campaign by the London Borough of Lewisham
London Borough of Lewisham
The London Borough of Lewisham is a London borough in south-east London, England and forms part of Inner London. The principal settlement of the borough is Lewisham...

's mayor, who complains that an estimated 5,000 bands are dropped in his borough each month; details the response to a November 2005 BBC Radio Essex
BBC Essex
BBC Essex is the BBC Local Radio service for the English county of Essex. It broadcasts from its studios on New London Road in Chelmsford on 103.5 and 95.3 FM, and on 729 , 765 , and 1530 AM. It is also available on DAB and live streaming via the internet.-History:BBC Essex launched on 5...

 programme in which listeners were asked to send in found rubber bands; allegedly 10,000 were received; and makes a range of more or less whimsical suggestions for the re-use of such bands—as rubber balls, "chopsticks for butterfingers", and rubber band tanks. Lewisham's campaign was picked up by a number of other news outlets, such as the BBC.. The story resurfaces from time to time, independently of specific campaigns.

At least one report of injury to wildlife has been made in respect of—presumably—Royal Mail rubber bands, in the case of a duck
Duck
Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the Anatidae family of birds, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the Anatidae family; they do not represent a monophyletic group but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered...

 observed with a rubber band wrapped around its head.

Campaign

More recently, in April 2009, the Keep Britain Tidy
Keep Britain Tidy
Keep Britain Tidy is a British campaign run by the Keep Britain Tidy environmental charity, which is part funded by the UK government. The majority of their campaigning is around the issue of litter. They have been using "Keep Britain Tidy" as their slogan for almost fifty years...

 campaign has involved itself in the issue as part of its Big Tidy Up campaign, and returned some 13,000 bands that had been collected by the public to the Royal Mail. The campaign, together with a similar initiative by the Keep Scotland Beautiful organisation, once again raised the profile of the issue, garnering coverage in the mainstream press.

Royal Mail response

The Royal Mail emphasises that it instructs staff to re-use and not to abandon rubber bands, and that in mid-2004 it changed the colour of bands used from brown to red so that that they are easier to spot and retrieve. It notes that neither the company, nor to its knowledge any staff, have ever been fined for rubber band littering; and that contemporary red rubber bands are designed to be more biodegradable than previously used brown bands, so as to lessen the environmental impact. Finally the company notes that it is seeking to redesign certain processes to diminish the use of bands.

Cultural phenomenon

The UK press exhibits a fascination with the whimsical side of the issue: what to do with discarded bands. The Guardian
The Guardian
The Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...

 newspaper went as far as to dedicate an editorial
Editorial
An opinion piece is an article, published in a newspaper or magazine, that mainly reflects the author's opinion about the subject. Opinion pieces are featured in many periodicals.-Editorials:...

column to the subject. More frequently the media solicits and presents lists of suggestions: the BBC Radio 4's PM programme proffered the following:
  • guitar strings
  • hair bands
  • a teddy bungee jump
  • bracelets
  • seals for bags of sugar
  • bicycle clips
  • emergency belt loops
  • pencil-top erasers
  • waistband expanders
  • chopping board stabilisers
  • anti-slip devices for mixing spoons
  • anti-squeak devices for bed slats
  • saucepan handle covers
  • jar openers
  • a shoe tidy
  • cable ties + an aide memoire
  • barter for stamps
  • cat toys
  • flicking toys
  • gardening string
  • handlebar fasteners.

Less frequently, papers discuss whether postmen or the Royal Mail should be fined for littering; the Keep Britain Tidy campaign group has suggested that environmental protection laws should be used to levy on-the-spot fines of £80 for dropping litter, with the penalty rising to £2,500 if the case goes to court.
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