Collecting Elastic Bands

A few months ago, just before Christmas, I had need of an elastic band. I realised we had none so added them to my shopping list (it’s a wild life I live!). On the way to the shop I found one on the pavement and so picked it up – problem solved, money saved, happy days.

But it didn’t end there. Over the following days and weeks I noticed and started picking up elastic bands whenever I was out walking. Clean, functional ones were brought home; broken or dirty ones were binned. It has become a habit, an everyday feature, perhaps even an obsession. After three months I find myself the owner of several hundred elastic bands, certainly enough to last me for the foreseeable future. All have been rescued from the pavements of my part of Southampton. Most I guess would have ended up rotting away in landfill.

I’m pretty sure 95% have been dropped by post deliverers. I have made them into a ball. I plan to collect them for a year and then send a picture of them, with a letter, to the Post Office, asking them to tell their postmen to look after and re-use their elastic bands and offering to return all the ones I’ve collected.

I share this not for virtue-signalling, but because it reminds me how simple it is to develop helpful habits in service of small changes. Everyone’s a winner. I have found a new hobby that improves my observation skills and forward-bend-mobility. The elastic bands have a home. I will encourage the Post Office to make a positive change that would save them money and help the environment. And if it gets just one more person to do the same then…well who knows where that lead will lead.