In a modern take on the Boston Tea Party protest, unhappy residents in Illinois are e-mailing images of tea bags to utility companies to protest rate increases.

Illinois Lt.-Gov. Pat Quinn last week urged residents to send tea bags with their utility bill payments to show their displeasure with the rate hike. But the Postal Service objected, warning that the lumpy stuffed envelopes could ruin their processing equipment.

As an alternative, Quinn is now offering digital images on his website so consumers can e-mail them to utilities companies. Quinn said the tea bags are a symbolic allusion to the 1773 Boston Tea Party, in which angry citizens dumped over 300 boxes of tea into Boston Harbour to protest unfair taxation by the British.

In early September, the utilities company Ameren announced an increase of between 40 and 55 per cent, while ComEd said it would bump up rates by about 22 per cent.

With files from the Associated Press