Another happy afternoon spent at the post office: mail volumes grew in Slovakia in 2007. (source: Sme - Peter Žákovič)
AT the beginning of this year, Slovak Post counted more than 160,000 items at its storage site in Banská Bystrica that were undeliverable due to an incomplete or missing address. Around 600 such items are processed daily at the Postal Registration and Deposit Office in Trnava, Andrea Pivarčiová, spokesperson for Slovak Post, told SITA.
A flood of undeliverable items usually comes in after Christmas and Easter.
The Deposit Office has the right to open the items in order to find the correct address and try to deliver the mail. Parcels often contain books, shoes and old clothes, as well as personal documents, from passports to ID cards to health insurance cards, Pivarčiová said.
Most of the items currently being stored - 145,000 - are simple letters. The rest are parcels and other packages. They were undeliverable because of a missing or incomplete address, or because the addressee didn't pick up the item, moved, or died. Parcels stay at the Postal Registration Office for a year and then are put up for auction. Letters are kept for three months and then destroyed.
