• by Ray Schultz , Yesterday

Publishers who mail newspapers have until July 1 to start cross-strapping bundles that go through mail processing, the Wisconsin Newspapers Association has reminded members. 

The goal of the U.S. Postal Service is to diminish bundle breakage during mail processing, the association states. 

The USPS will require “all bundles of flats to have two or more cross-strapped bands or be shrink-wrapped with one or more cross-strapped bands except for newspapers that are place in a flat tray and entered as exceptional dispatch,” the USPS announced in March.

The new requirement also applies to mailers of marketing flats.

Mailers must now use plastic straps or their equivalents. Rubber bands, string and twine are no longer allowed, the association reports.