Baby step: reduce plastic bags (the newspaper delivery kind)

We've been reading aloud some of the Beverly Cleary books about Henry Huggins and Scooter McCarthy. I think they're sweet. In case you don't remember, Scooter has a paper route. Henry gets to sub for him while Scooter's on vacation. While I never had a paper route, these books remind me of when I was a kid and the paper always got delivered by some neighborhood kid on a bike and it was rolled up with a rubber band.

Here's where I go all Andy Rooney on you… Now it's these darned plastic bags! And it's not a neighborhood kid. It's someone with a drivers' license who speeds down your street at about 40 miles per hour tossing the paper in a plastic bag onto your driveway (if you're lucky), and you never see them because it's too dark and they're going too fast. The plastic bags are so worthless and thin that they usually rip on impact and land in a big puddle getting the paper all wet. I put them in my reuse/recycle center where they breed like rabbits (They do! I swear!), threatening to take over my house. I'm not making this up.

I figured I had a few options to reduce the amount of plastic bags coming into my life. I could quit subscribing to the paper and read it online, but refuse to do that:
1) Because I have a degree in journalism and I like reading this paper in paper-form, and I know people who work there, and I want to keep this newspaper in business. Well, I guess I don't need a #2. That's the gist of it. (Did I really just say I majored in journalism and can't make a numbered list with two coherent points? Oy.)

The other option would be to get one of those boxes on my mailbox post so the delivery person could put it in there and then not need the plastic bag. Genius! I contacted the paper's customer service, and they said they'd have one installed right away. That was last June. Still nothing. So I chatted with a neighbor who just happened to have one of those paper boxes in his garage that he was not using and gave to me. I've dragged and dragged and dragged my heels, but finally put the thing up over the past weekend. The delivery person of course has not used or noticed it yet since he/she is too busy flying down our street like an Olympic bobsled competitor. So the last step in this crazy 'reduce plastic bag scheme' is the well-worded letter:

Dear Newspaper Delivery Person,

I am on your route. I get the daily paper. I now have one of those bright yellow newspaper boxes on my mailbox post. It's so very bright yellow, I can't see how you've missed it. But you have. For several days now. Please start delivering my paper in that box and please do not include the plastic bag. I wouldn't mind a rubber band, if necessary.

Yours sincerely,
Renee

I'm keeping my fingers crossed. I don't know why I have such low expectations on this front. I think I better reword that letter a bit.