Japanese Postman Hid Up to 24,000 Undelivered Item

A postman of Japan Post rides a motorcycle in Tokyo. Issei Kato/Reuters
A postman of Japan Post rides a motorcycle in Tokyo. Issei Kato/Reuters
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Japanese Postman Hid Up to 24,000 Undelivered Item

A postman of Japan Post rides a motorcycle in Tokyo. Issei Kato/Reuters
A postman of Japan Post rides a motorcycle in Tokyo. Issei Kato/Reuters

A postman admitted he stockpiled 24,000 letters for years in his house because he thinks his job is too hard.

The 61-year-old man told the Japanese police "it was too much bother to deliver the items."

The authorities found thousands of undelivered letters in his house in the Kanagawa Prefecture, near Tokyo.

The man kept the letters for years, but his action wasn't discovered until lately following an internal investigation carried out by the post company.

Efforts are being made to deliver all the delayed mails accompanied by an apology to each person who had to wait all this time to receive his letter or parcel.

In a similar case, a 47-year-old Argentinian postman, named Manuel Guterres, served a one year jail sentence in Patagonia after he was convicted of deliberately keeping letters.

In Guterres's house, the investigators found bags containing 19,000 undelivered letters with stamps, AFP reported.

The case took place in 2009, but, the final sentence wasn't announced until 2015, stipulating a suspended year of prison, after being convicted of "illegally keeping messages".



New Delhi Vows to Flatten Monster Garbage Pile in Indian Capital

New Delhi says it plans to level the massive Bhalswa landfill by March 2026. Prakash SINGH / AFP/File
New Delhi says it plans to level the massive Bhalswa landfill by March 2026. Prakash SINGH / AFP/File
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New Delhi Vows to Flatten Monster Garbage Pile in Indian Capital

New Delhi says it plans to level the massive Bhalswa landfill by March 2026. Prakash SINGH / AFP/File
New Delhi says it plans to level the massive Bhalswa landfill by March 2026. Prakash SINGH / AFP/File

India's capital New Delhi has vowed to clear one of its largest trash piles by next year as part of a plan to eradicate unsightly landfills dotting the megacity's skyline.

Around 32 million people live in greater Delhi, where a slipshod approach to waste management has left numerous landfills with garbage piled up to 60 meters (200 feet) high and visible from miles away.

Regular spot fires during the capital's long and intense summer see the trash mounds turn into toxic conflagrations spilling dangerous chemical fumes into nearby neighborhoods, reported AFP.

Delhi environment minister Manjinder Singh Sirsa told reporters Tuesday that work was underway to process and dispose of waste at one of the city's biggest trash piles.

By the end of the year, waste at the Bhalswa dump on the city's northern outskirts "will be reduced to a point where it will no longer be visible" from a distance, he said.

"Our ultimate aim is to ensure that no new garbage mountains are formed," he added.

Local neighborhoods around the Bhalswa landfill are home to thousands of Delhi's poorest residents who have migrated from grinding rural poverty in search of work.

Sirsa said the Bhalswa site would be cleared by March next year with similar remediation work to follow at Delhi's other two main garbage dumps.

According to last reported estimates from 2023, Delhi generates more than 11,000 tons of solid waste each day, according to official estimates in 2023.

More than four million tons of waste sit at the Bhalswa dump according to official estimates.

Untreated domestic waste burns in the landfills during the hot summer months, producing excess methane which further pollutes India's already smog-choked urban centers.