my uncle was a postman, when I young he used to give me as many rubber bands as I needed, from memory they were brown

I made a daisy chain of rubber bands that - when stetched, was about 400meters long (to the end of our street). When i let it go, I thought something crazy would happen (i was about 6-7)but in reality nothing really happened it just shrank fast

I was extremely disapointed, it look many days to do this, I learnt at an early age about imagination vs reality

The volume of rubber bands used is equivalent to 1500 Escobars, another prolific rubber band user. Strangely Pablo did not get as much criticism and complaints about his excessive usage.

If the odd rubber band is the price I have to pay for nice, friendly men (and they are almost all men, for some reason) turning up at my door, and perhaps helping me if some disaster has befallen me, then it's a price I'm willing to pay.

Now, back to watching England getting slaughtered by Italy... oh, wait!

2005 was peak mail. More letters than ever were delivered then and only in one delivery as they had got rid of the second delivery by then, with post arriving whenever rather than before breakfast. Things started to fall off a cliff in the years after that with businesses and government moving online. However, during this period, with more letters per address delivered at a time, there must have been unprecedented demand for the rubber bands.

The Royal Mail also encouraged bulk mail during that time doing final mile for companies that were competition and specialising in junk mail.

Luckily those days are over and most non elderly people in the UK can expect zero letters on most days.

At my first tech job there was a guy who had a ball made from the rubber bans the postie would leave every day. He had been doing it for 2-3 years before I joined. It was twice the size of a baseball.

I remember collecting rubber bands from the postie as a child to make a rubber band ball. I remember most of them being brown. Sometimes our post comes bundled with a rubber band now. I don't think I've ever seen a red one.

At my high school in the US back in the 70’s (yikes), all the rage was to have your school books bound and carried using a US Postal Service adjustable leather tie-out strap.

Our posties are always littering the streets and even my driveway with regular brown rubber bands!

> that contemporary red rubber bands are designed to be more biodegradable than previously used brown bands, so as to lessen the environmental impact

Doesn't this mean less reusable?

My dad was a postman. He always used to bring home big bundles of these and I’d make rubber band balls out of them. Good times. =)

It seems they no longer use them. I remember having to pick them up quite regularly so it’s no wonder they consumed so many.

Having noticed the increasing proliferation of super-thin easily-breakable rubbish rubber bands, I for one would welcome availability of high quality ones.

I'd once seen a show about a murderer in the UK that was caught partially due to his use of yellow cable ties that were exclusive to the Royal Mail.

A bit of Googling shows it came from the murder of Leanne Tiernan. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/2116617.stm

I'm not from the UK obviously because, one look at the picture and my reaction was darn, those things look handy.

The ubiquitous leftover rubber band hereabouts comes from bundles of broccoli but that's a less convenient form factor.

Has anyone noticed that in the UK, posties work for the Royal Mail, whereas in the US, mail carriers work for the US Postal Service. It's a curious inversion

Our post is still delivered in rubber bands, but they're no longer red.

Judging by my driveway, they seem to be white at the moment!

I think our mail systems are probably some of the most wasteful aspects of our society. At this point, I really can’t imagine the need for actual mail to come to my house. Fully 95% of the mail I get is adverts, 4.999% are bills (that could be digital), and .001% is genuine letters from another person.

All that paper, fuel and wasted human effort to make sure I get something I throw away in the recycle bin immediately after I get it. It should honestly be a crime and I don’t know how it isn’t.