Going Green

In the past decade, the world has been going green. This is a concept where we all band together and help save the environment by being conservative with our old wasteful ways. Use less gas, use less paper, cut out styro foam, and keep the use of plastic to a minimum.The only problem is, that while we are making great efforts, some of them are so convoluted that they are more wasteful than before. For example, when we go to the store to shop, we are encouraged to bring our own user friendly recycle bags. Most of us comply. Now that we are not using the store bags, what are we supposed to use for our trash? We used to use the ones from the supermarket. Now, we have to buy bags. So, off we go to the store, to purchase what would otherwise have been free bags. The bags are contained in a paper box, so we have created unnecessary trash from throwing out the box, after using the bags. My next example is the explanation of benefits we receive from health insurance companies, when our claims are paid. I work in the healthcare industry, so I receive many of these each day. In order to "go green" one company is only sending the check with a reference number.If you want to know who it belongs to, you must call them and they will send a fax. The only problem is that the fax consists of 5 pages. So instead of just printing the patient information on the same one piece of paper that the check is on, I am being sent a cover sheet, check image, 2 pages of claim dates and one page explaining the codes. The only thing going green in these 2 examples, is the green going out of my pocket and into the accounts of the paper companies.