Conspiracy Theory - Paper is Power

The distribution of paper is at the very heart of the global economic crisis. IMHO anyway. This morning I received a letter from Lloyds bank telling me that their insurance policy on loans has changed as at 1st of April. Along with this letter came three glossy paged stapled booklets that outlined the new policy. They were called, “your payment protection cover policy document”, “your payment protection cover insurance policy summary”, and “important changes to your protection insurance cover policy document”. Why three pamphlets and why three subtly different subjects I don’t know, and I never will. You see I will never read them. Why? Because I don’t bank with Lloyds anymore, haven’t done for over a month and therefore don’t have the need for any insurances. Is it just me or does it occur to you what a ludicrous situation this is. Here we are in the western world steeped in money and comfort to such a degree that we will give not so much as a second thought to the number of trees we cut down and pulp into paper so that we can send three explanatory documents out to someone who doesn’t need them and won’t read them. Not just one someone, probably many thousands of someones. Is it me…or does this just scream, WASTE WASTE WASTE. Where does these trees come from. Why the third world of course. Where food, wood and water are commodities that are so expensive your average person struggles to afford them. Who’s lives have been irrevocably changed by the chopping down of their forrests, a change that for some has been so devastating, leaving them so displaced that just feeding their children is an all consuming task. It’s not just banks that send out these unecessary documents (many of which are designed to get you to lend money that you cannot afford to buy things which you do not need to impress people that you do not like) but it is way too many organisations. I can attest to this, because on a monthly basis I cart a huge containers down to the recycle bins to re-pulp this unecessary destruction of resources. What about educations. With the advent of the NVQ I can tell you that the wastage of paper is enough to make you cry. Every NVQ gets printed with dozens of modules in a complete pack, although the learner only has to choose a number of them, somewhere between four and ten. The rest get stripped out and thrown away. In additon to that there is all of the handouts, and printouts and many other pieces of paper that get copied and put into ‘portfolio’s’. Is it me….doesn’t anyone worry about this use of paper. When you calculate the hundreds of thousand of tonnes of paper that are generated and then discarded from the production of NVQ’s not to mention the hundred of thousands of certificates that get printed off an a yearly basis this means that we in the western world, with out welfare state, national health, community policed, warm, comfortable and well fed society are educating ourselves at the expense of the third world. Is it me…..I must stop saying that.