Utility trash

Over recent years, utilities and banks have been encouraging their customers to ‘go green by abandoning paper bills and account statements in favour of online account management. The aim, so the marketing went, was to save both them and us money and also save a few trees. It seems they were, on two counts, lying.

In the last few weeks I have received new customer magazines from Virgin Media and HSBC. Virgin’s Electric! magazine was such mindless, irrelevant drivel that it went in the recycling bin within five minutes of me receiving it. HSBC’s Liquid is slightly less mindless, but every article is a blatant advert for their products. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not so naïve as to expect a ‘free’ magazine that is not primarily an advert, but I do expect it to be slightly less blatant than the all-out sell, sell, sell produced for HSBC by Wardour Publishing. It too is now in the recycling bin.

So now I am receiving more paper from the utilities and banks than I ever did before and it is trash which, if it were included in the mailings that came with my bills and account statements, I could chose to opt out from.