It’s a prickly affair

Pupils at Roundhay School in Leeds, West Yorkshire, sent our safety team a letter and poster that they had designed about the damage discarded elastic bands can have on both wildlife and the environment.

Dear Royal Mail Delivery staff,

You probably know that the population of hedgehogs in Britain has plummeted from 30 million in the 1950s to under 1 million now, with about 10 million hedgehogs having been lost in the last 10 years.

At Roundhay School, our pupils have been finding out about this decline and trying to stop it. Part of this effort has been a competition to design an information poster about dangers to hedgehogs and how to avoid them.

There are many things that we can all do to help the hedgehog, and the attached winning poster highlights them. We would be most grateful if you could display the poster where people are likely to see and read it. The prospect for the hedgehog is bleak unless we all take action now!

Thank you very much for your help.

Yours sincerely

Roundhay School attendance improvement officer, Rita Reid, said: ‘Roundhay students are determined to do all they can to spread the word on what we can do to prevent losing this wonderful and fascinating creature forever.’

Reduce, reuse, return

We recognise that the littering of elastic bands, which we use to keep bundles of mail together, is a potential threat to wildlife and the environment, as well as a cost to our business.

Last year, we used around 326 tonnes of elastic bands, 1.5% less than in 2016–17. We achieved this reduction by continuing to encourage our people to reuse elastic bands wherever possible.

Postwoman, Hilary Murray, from Manchester mail centre, said: ‘Like any environmentalist, I abhor waste. The delivery offices are crying out for elastic bands so I continue to collect surplus bands and recycle them to units who email me requesting them.

‘So far, we have saved many thousands of pounds for the business and developed a supportive relationship with colleagues who request bands. I remind them to spread the word and put used bands in their pouches for re-use instead of simply dropping them on the ground.

‘The business can be heavily fined for littering under the Clean Neighbourhoods Act. Bands dropped on floors, especially on stairs, form a slip hazard which can incur liability, plus dogs tend to eat discarded bands, which can be fatal or mean that they have to undergo major surgery.’

All the elastic bands that Royal Mail uses are biodegradable. This helps to reduce their impact on the environment. The natural rubber content means that the bands will start to biodegrade in an outdoor environment within a year.