#963 Litteracy

I think it’s criminal. I wish there was a hotline I could call. I’m talking about the newspaper-like ad bundle that gets delivered every week.
Not the one that comes in the mail.
The one they unceremoniously dump in your yard.
Or driveway or shrubs. It ends up wherever because, unlike the paid newspaper to which you subscribe, you have no economic disincentive to hang over the head of the deliverer, who I assume is merely paid to unload a shipload of them all over town.
I have no kinder word to bestow on this advertising aberration than yard spam. Because spam it most certainly is. It is unasked for, unwanted, ugly, and it requires effort to remove it.
As I walk around the neighborhood, I can see this yard spam is universally reviled. Virtually all my neighbors leave it in their yards or driveways for days. Many of the bundles work their way out to the street. And they become, simply, litter.
As this mass of sodden ugliness is published by the local newspaper, it is doubly unfortunate. Newspapers were our last bastion of literacy. It’s extremely sad that they are now the premier purveyor of litter.
Litteracy with two t’s.
Criminal litter.
It’s also sad because newspapers are hurting. And they are cutting their own throat. No one likes these bundles of yard spam. Many folks probably don’t shop at the advertisers therein in protest, which hurts the newspaper’s revenues further. Plus, the newspaper company has all the expense of delivering trash whose intended recipient is so annoyed by it that they throw it instantly in the trash.
Well, not instantly. The eco-conscious like me must first strip away the rubber band and outer plastic in which the yardspam is encased. A covering which also prevents the yardspam from being peacefully biodegraded when it ends up in empty lots and ditches.
If you and I were to dump such a mess on the side of the road, we would be cited and fined for littering.
Why is the newspaper company exempt from such a citation?
Someone should call the criminal hotline and make sure they get a hot ticket.
America, ya gotta love it.