Thousands of missing mail tubs are slowly beginning to make their way back to the post office.

Since the U.S. Postal Service a few weeks ago offered amnesty to anyone who returned a filched tub, the agency has gotten about 211,000 of them back nationwide, said Jim Ahlgren, postal spokesman in Minneapolis. At about $3.25 each, that's about $686,000 worth.

Last week, the post office issued a plea for the white corrugated plastic tubs. Two years ago, postal officials had an inventory of 20 million nationwide. A few weeks ago, they had just 20,000 nationwide.

There may have been a few hundred returned in the Twin Cities since the Postal Service made the plea, Ahlgren said. He hoped for a bigger local response.

Things have gotten so tight that workers shut down a few sorting machines during the busy holiday season and had to make do with makeshift cardboard tubs and anything else that would hold mail at the main office in Minneapolis, he said.

The steel-reinforced plastic tubs — which stand about 11¼ inches high and are 18 inches long and 13 inches wide — are made on the Iron Range by Minnesota Diversified Industries.

People can leave "missing" tubs with a postal worker or at a branch station and no questions will be asked, Ahlgren said.

-- Anonymous, December 13, 2002