wild places | wild happenings | wild news
make a difference for our wild places

home | links | search the site
  all articles latest | past | articles by topics | search wildnews
wild news on wildsingapore
  Straits Times Forum online 5 Sep 05
More can be done to go paperless and cut waste

On average, I receive almost a dozen bills and statements of account each month from Singtel, Starhub and a variety of bank and credit card companies.

More often than not, I am curious how at this internet age, corporations and consumers have not learnt to harness the power of this amazing technology.

On top of the pile of papers we attempt to file or recycle, I am perplexed by the number of reply envelopes that these companies include in the bills and statements. These days, the AXN is far more user-friendly than having to write a cheque and finding a letter box. As a result, all these envelopes, like the countless flyers and advertisements, end up being thrown away.

I would like to suggest the following:

1. Give consumers a chance to opt if they want to receive their bill via email. Alternatively, the email or SMS can be a simple notification for consumers to check the month's bill on the website. If consumers pay directly on the vendors' websites, we would have eliminated the need for any paper to be used in the first place.

2. Encourage people to use the AXN. Instead of having to type your account number, program the system to recognise the user's IC and PIN number. This will eliminate having a hard copy of the bill when paying. A hard copy is required to scan the barcode or the account number.

3. Admittedly, going completely paperless is a far-fetched reality. However, we can still minimise the use of paper. For bills and statements of account, I often wonder why the system needs to churn up page 2 when page 1 gives all the information. Frequently, I find page 2 is blank except for the GST and total current charges. If the address field is minimised, all pertinent information can fit into one page.

My recycleables get collected every two weeks and I am usually astounded by the amount of paper there is to put out. Added to this week's pile are the crisp white envelopes I received in the mail.

It's a sad sight to see good things go to waste. Why recycle when we can go one up on that?

Karen Tan Pei Pei (Ms)
links
Related articles on Singapore: reduce, reuse, recycle
about the site | email ria
  News articles are reproduced for non-profit educational purposes.
 

website©ria tan 2003 www.wildsingapore.com