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Printed From Acorn-Online.com Ridgefield Press
It’s “ridiculous,” it’s “annoying,” and it has just made the notoriously difficult Ridgefield Post Office experience even more aggravating, postal patrons say. The latest edict from Ridgefield postmaster Tim Hushion has yanked the trash receptacles from the post office lobby, effective last Saturday, Feb. 23. “Attention all customers: Due to security reasons all mail must be removed from the post office. Postmaster,” reads a proclamation posted many times on the post office walls. The decision was made to protect postal customers, who should take all their mail home with them, Mr. Hushion said. “It’s a security issue — you cannot throw your live good mail in the trash containers,” he said. “You can’t do it. The postal inspectors, they go through our garbage to see if any first class mail is being thrown out.” Trash receptacles are still in place next to the stamp vending machine and in the room where people line up waiting to get to the window clerks, but there is now no place to put the unwanted mail people get in their post office boxes. Many people have resorted to throwing the unwanted box mail on the floor, Mr. Hushion said. “I just don’t understand the people in this town,” he said Tuesday. “It’s their garbage — I wouldn’t walk into a store and get something and then throw it on the floor if I didn’t want it. I just wouldn’t.”
Huge mess Post box users say removing the trash container is yet another inconvenience in a post office that has been plagued for years by problems with parking, understaffing and some say general inefficiency. “This is ridiculous,” said one Ridgefield customer Tuesday, after searching unsuccessfully for the trash receptacle for her junk mail. “I’m just leaving it here,” she said defiantly, sticking it on the counter. “Why do they give us all this junk mail? If they didn’t give us the junk mail, we wouldn’t need the trash.” “They’re not letting you throw it out anymore — I can’t believe it!” said Jura Owczarzak a few minutes later. “I’d rather have them just not deliver all this to me,” she said, pointing to the bulk of her post office box contents. “How do you not get it?” she asked. But the answer is, unless you take steps to be removed from mailing lists, you don’t “not get it.” Publishers of “junk mail” pay the post office to deliver that mail to homes and post office box addresses, and once it’s delivered, it’s yours to dispose of, Mr. Hushion said. Ms. Owczarzak said she didn’t think leaving it on the table or the floor was the right answer, because, “who’s going to clean it up?” “I’ll just carry it home,” she decided. But many people have protested by throwing unwanted mail on the floor or leaving it on the table, a postal window clerk said. “We’ve gotten complaints about the mess since Saturday,” he said. Mr. Hushion said a postal employee has had to pick up after angry customers each day since the trash container was removed. Most people at the post office Tuesday seemed bewildered by the move, which struck some as nonsensical. “What happened to the garbage can?” said a woman with her hands full of mail, turning slowly around twice in the lobby. “Oh, I don’t care,” she said. “I’m from Wilton, I’m just here picking up the mail for our hockey club, and I’ll going to take all this home. It’s annoying, but I’ll get over it.” She pointed to unwanted mail left lying on the table in the center of the room. “That’s just rude,” she said. Mr. Hushion said the decision to remove the trash receptacle was his idea, not a mandate from the postal service. Perhaps the disappearance of the trash can would help the parking problem at the post office, because people would be less inclined to linger near their post boxes, sorting through their mail, he said. He has not received much feedback on the matter, he added. “I may reconsider,” he said. People who wish to be removed from junk mailing lists may log onto the Direct Marketing Association Web site, DMAchoice.org, and follow instructions. © Copyright 2008 by Hersam Acorn Newspapers |
