When They Insist That Getting Rid of Paper Receipts and Paper Trail of All Kinds is Better (Manchester City Council and the "Smart" or "App" Mindset)
GO GET OUR APP THAT WON'T EVEN WORK IN A FEW YEARS AND SAVE THE PLANET WHILE THE CARGO BOATS GO ON AND ON FOR SATISFACTION OF YOUR ENDLESS CONSUMPTION (SALES)!
Crossposted from personal blog as this pertains to digital life/rights
I HAVE just received a curious E-mail.
Suppose there are over 400,000 "Manchester households" (it does not say Greater Manchester, but set that aside for now).
Manchester City Council now says: "We would like you to join over 40,000 Manchester households that already receive their council tax bill by email."
Like the roughly half who got connected (or conned) into "smart" meters? After a decade of constant nagging?
What would be the actual advantage of having "council tax bill by email"?
Quoting Manchester City Council: "The benefits of this are:
- It saves money on printing and postage that could be better used for our city and vital front-line services
- It saves paper and is kinder to the environment"
Well, that's just classic greenwashing, and not only a duplicate point (they basically make the same argument twice).
It may seem OK to only receive some E-mail, but no paper trail exists if that's done. And some places require actual paper, e.g. bills with addresses on them. They would not admit or accept (or access) some E-mail that you "forward" to them (and can be easily forged).
Paper trail means paper.
Hard paper.
If you want to save the planet, don't start by culling small paper items (like receipts).
Think BIG; cull cars and jets, especially rich people's jets that pollute for only one person.
The oligarchy tries to blame the "peasants"... for receiving 1-page A4 paper sheets. How much pollution does one tanker generate? Or some space "mission" (rockets)?
Go sell your BS agenda to someone else. Paper trails exist for a good reason and I have all my bills from the Council going over a decade back. Those can be invaluable as proof of things.
Gmail is meanwhile killing E-mail accounts it deems not active enough (new policy). Way to burn bills, invoices etc. without consent. █