Mail in bags a great aggravation

Hallelujah! And so comes the end of the mail delivered in plastic bags. Or has it? This has been one of my great aggravations. Three months of pure torture thinking that this abominable practice might happen nationwide. Do you want it? Do you not want it? Come on 89701 and 89703, get it together and write the Postmaster General about how you feel about the change in services. If you don't, the entire nation might be plagued with this scourge.

Last December, I learned the postal employees received a retroactive pay raise constituting in some instances more than $3,000 per employee. Shortly after New Years, I received notice we were to start having our mail delivered in a plastic bag, making it easier for the postal workers to sort and also to keep the mail dry. I thought, oh boy, next they will be asking for a rate increase. The very next night on the news, they announced the post office was asking for a rate increase for stamps in 2001.

Half the time removing the bag from the mailbox left me with the mail upside down and pouring out on the ground. Then as the mail was delivered, some of it was in the wrong bag, some of my mail was going to the neighbors and my neighbor's mail was coming to me. The bag even included mail addressed to other streets.

The bags were advertising various items on the outside, and as if that is not enough, they started putting cardboard notices in the bags with the mail. This just created more trash to be thrown out. We need to recognize the damage this can cause to the environment as well as the safety of small children and animals should they suffocate or ingest the bags.

The post office began asking that the 89701 and 89703 customers begin recycling the plastic bags by saving them up, driving the bags to the post office, finding a parking space and taking the bags into the post office to the recycle bin. Hello? I feel it is unjustified to expect me to carry this request through. How many people do you think are actually going to do this?

Tell the officials of the postal service how you look at this proposed nationwide change in the service in case it is not already etched in stone. Write to Postmaster General Wm. J. Henderson, 475 L'Enfant Plaza, S.W., Washington, DC 20260-0010. ELEANOR M. AVEIRO, Carson City