Paper Boys and Girls!

It’s funny how often a random conversation or occurrence will deliver a subject for my blog to me, usually when I’m sitting wondering what to write about.  This morning, it was my partner exclaiming over how many pieces of paper he found he had in his hand, as receipts for a one-off purchase at the local garage!  There were three pieces of paper in total – a till receipt, a card payment receipt, and an advice about a special offer.  Three separate pieces of paper, printed with the kind of ink that fades within a day of being touched or left in the sun so it needs to be either quickly squirreled away for safe keeping or instantly binned as irrelevant.

It kind of begs the question – why, in a so-called “electronic society”, do we still need so much paper?  Back in the olden days when we needed a paper trail to account for everything, long before internet banking took over and simplified it all, it made sense to have lots of receipts attesting to what we’d spent.  After all, our accountants used to shout at us if we couldn’t provide hard evidence for every last penny.  Nowadays, our bank statements do it for us, and there are various online systems that allow us to code and channel it all appropriately.  And even if we do still need evidential receipts, why does so much paper have to be involved?  Three receipts?  At the supermarket it is often more than that.  Usually there will be a coupon-shaped receipt informing us of how many pennies we’ve saved at Tesco by not shopping at Sainsbury’s, or vice versa. Half of the coupons for savings are only useful when you buy a certain brand of something, and are therefore only relevant to a small sector of the community who actually likes or wants to try that product.  The rest of us just stuff them into handbags, purses or pockets, to surface later as out of date, unreadable, or fluffy flotsam in the washing machine and all through the clothes.

You may or may not know that it takes roughly 24 trees to produce one tonne of paper, and you also may or may not know that here in the UK alone we are using TWELVE AND A HALF MILLION TONNES  of paper per year.  That’s a lot of trees.  No wonder the forests are thinning out so alarmingly across the world, reducing so many wildlife habitats in the process.  Those forests simply aren’t re-growing at the same rate at which they’re being decimated. And, since recycled paper produces a staggering 73% less air pollution than paper produced from raw materials, it makes more sense than anything else, to do just that.

Happily most recycling centres do accept paper, in various forms, such as magazines, phone books and catalogues, along with newspapers, flyers, cardboard and office paper.  It’s good that we are encouraged to recycle paper through the simple, convenient process of council collection, because if it was much more difficult than putting out the bin each week, we’d all be recycling a lot less.  Who has the time or space to collect waste paper and take it to the right place for recycling?   It needs to be convenient, literally on our doorstep, or we just don’t tend to do it. 

As important as it is to recycle what we’ve already produced, it makes even more sense to cut down on what we produce in the very beginning.  Even small pieces of paper, like till receipts, can start to mount up.  I’ve lost count of the times I’ve cleaned out a handbag and found a ridiculous amount of paper I haven’t so much as looked at since the moment it was put into my hand.  It floats around in the bottom of my bag and by the time I fish it out, most of it is unreadable anyway. Into the recycling bag it goes, if I’m anywhere near one.  If I’m not, it simply goes into a bin somewhere, if I’m out and about and finally sick of not being able to find whatever it is I’m really looking for in my bag, for so much paper being in the way.

Companies are notorious for the chronic waste of paper.  Since I changed to online bank statements and billing systems, I’ve noticed a huge drop in the piles of paper that tend to accumulate around the house, but some companies still send several pieces of correspondence to me in different envelopes, often within a day or two of each other.  Once, from Companies House, I received four separate letters in different envelopes within two days.  I do appreciate that the operating systems for companies and corporations may not lend themselves to compiling correspondence from different departments and sending it all out as one letter in one envelope, but surely there is something that can be done about the sheer volume of mail that gets sent in such a way?  How many more trees will it take?

Junk mail is also becoming more of a problem, and I have now resorted to putting a “no circulars” sign on my letterbox flap to try and stem the tide.  The run-up to Bank Holidays and Christmas are notorious times, when we can expect an avalanche of special offers to come storming through the flap, enticing us to enter their stores with the only type of paper they are interested in seeing – the lovely flash of cash.  And I guess it probably works.  My new sign means I don’t get to take advantage of some of these offers, but I’d rather go and hunt for what I want online and Google the specials, than deal with the relentless deluge of mail that comes marching into my house uninvited. It seems that every week we are throwing out a full bin of cardboard and paper, at least half of which I haven’t asked for and have no interest in reading.  I wouldn’t mind if it was paper bags for my fruit and vegetables, which I buy from the local Farmer’s Market, but they are still using plastic, and don’t get me started here on the perils of plastic, as that’s a whole ‘nother blog!

Overall, despite the electronic technology available to us all, we are still producing far too much un-necessary paper.  As individuals there’s a lot we can do to cut down on the amount of paper we manufacture and consume.  Since shop keepers seem relentlessly determined to foist receipts upon us for every little thing we buy, there’s not much we can do to avoid them, at least until they can figure out a better way of offering us proof of purchase.  But there are ways in which we can contribute to the ongoing regeneration of existing paper.

Buying recycled is a great way to start.  Just be aware that all recycled paper is not the same.  If something goes wrong in the milling process, the virgin pulp is often reused to make a fresh batch, and it is – technically – “recycled”.  When buying new paper, buying 100% post consumer waste recycled is making a significant contribution to the reduction in the number of trees that will need to be cut down for “virgin” paper, which is not necessarily of any better quality.  Toilet paper, printing paper, packaging and other forms of paper and cardboard can be purchased as recycled, with no compromise in the quality.  Some of the packaging on items from supermarkets is classed as recycled, so it pays to look at the labels.  Using reusable shopping bags helps as well, even though they are a bigger combatant against plastic.

Switching to online banking statements and other utility billing will dramatically reduce the amount of paper that comes into the home. So will paying attention to what you order online, because this is a really big factor in how much junk mail you end up getting.  Ensuring you tick the box rejecting unwanted mail from the companies you use, or from their ‘associate compatible’ partner companies, will mean you get fewer unwanted circulars to then have to dispose of.  You can also opt out of receiving telephone directories and catalogues for companies who also offer access to their wares online.

Many home printers now have a duplex function, enabling you to print double sided, which cuts down on the over-use of fresh paper.  When cutting and pasting information, particularly from the internet, reducing the spaces between blocks of text can dramatically reduce the amount of paper you need to use, to print a document.

All this aside, you can actually reuse a lot of the paper that somehow manages to make its way into the home. 

• Buying a cheap shredder will enable you to shred all kinds of paper items and use the shredding for packaging, for bird, hamster or guinea pig beds, and for compost.  Not all councils accept shredder paper for recycling, as its value is much less than intact paper and it creates a lot of mess in the streets if it’s unescured, so you do need to be careful when shredding, that you don’t produce more than what you need. 
• Old Christmas cards can be glued into a “Santa Scrapbook”, and sent to the Children’s Wards of various hospitals.  It’s a nice project for the kids to do over the holidays or on rainy days.  You can also make bunting from the card faces for decorations for their bedrooms. 
• Toilet roll centres can be folded up inside one another until full and then used as “briquettes” for lighting the fire.  They can also be used in the garden to protect young seedlings when they first poke their heads above the soil.  
• Gift wrap, ribbons and tissue paper can be reused. The backs of used envelopes are handy for jotting down shopping lists or notes. The blank backs of non-confidential letters can be cut into four to make note paper. 
• Magazines can be shared with friends, or donated to your local doctor or dentist surgery. 
• Newspapers can be used to make pots for seedlings.  They also act as insulation in a variety of situations.  I remember I once rode a motorcycle in the pouring rain for three hundred and fifty miles with a newspaper stuffed down the front of my jacket.  It kept me completely dry!  I also had one under my coir doormat, which helped protect the porch floor in winter. Just be careful that your newspaper insulation doesn’t become any kind of fire hazard!  

There’s no doubt we are getting more savvy about recycling, and paper is one of the easiest and friendly substances to regenerate.  Councils are helping, but we can’t rely on them to deal with all of it, or provide all the answers.  We need to think for ourselves about how we can reduce the pressure on our environment caused by the over-production and waste management of paper and its associated by-products, and put that thought into action.

I’d love to hear about any paper saving or recycling ideas that people are putting into practice.  Please do share your thoughts and ideas here, because if we can all help one another learn and do, it can only lead to a better world for the future generations who stand to inherit it.  It will be fabulous if they can still have plenty of trees to look at, and to purify the air they need to breathe!   

        

Deadly Nightshade In the Garden of Friends

Many years ago, I stood speechless one day while a friend barged into my house unannounced, wandered over to my china cabinet, pulled out a crystal tumbler and wandered over to the sink to help herself to a glass of water. She did know where the normal glasses were kept, and she knew I only used the crystal ones for dinner parties and other special occasions. I guess she forgot.  As she filled her glass, she told me for the hundredth time how annoying her kids were, how her high-earning husband didn't understand her need to have a spa weekend away from the family, how they’d made a mistake buying such a big house, how much she wanted to throw in her part time job, how angry she was at her parents who had given up their whole established lives and flown half way around the world in their mid seventies to live closer to the grandchildren but who had decided to buy their own flat and not invest in her house as she originally expected them to, and what a pain it was to be her.  Then she asked me if I would have her kids (yet again) the following afternoon in the gap between school ending and her being able to pick them up after work.

I wanted to remind her, nicely of course, that we were renting a small uglyish house, my husband was establishing a new business and cash was incredibly tight so a spa weekend for me was a pipe dream, her two sons were healthy, happy and beautiful, I had just one useless parent (who didn’t give a damn about me at all), I was trying to find a rare part time job myself, I’d had her kids six times in the past fortnight over what was to have been a once a week arrangement, and I’d really have liked to tell her what a pain it was, right at that moment, to be me.

Did I say any of it?  No.  I didn't say a word, because she knew all of that.  She already knew that her life was so much better than mine on almost every possible level. She was my friend, after all.  I suddenly felt a bit sick, so I invented a headache and asked her politely if she wouldn't mind leaving. I knew right at that moment, while she stood there disrespecting me and my property and my life, that she was a toxic friend.

For a long time now, there have been a lot of resources available to help us understand what abusive domestic relationships look and feel like, and there are, thankfully, plenty of support systems in place to help us transcend them. But a different type of abusive relationship that has been flying under the radar for as long as humans have been talking to one another is now emerging as a bonafide hotbed of hurt and confusion .  Friendships can ALSO be portals to abuse of various kinds, principally emotional and exploitative, and while toxicity within these relationships has historically never enjoyed the same level of public discussion, attitudes to what should be kept behind closed doors are thankfully changing and it is becoming increasingly more obvious that abusive friendships are, sadly, just as prevalent as “romantic” or domestic ones.

Until relatively recently, most of us have simply assumed that our friendships would not be portals for abuse.  Whether or not that’s because we’ve traditionally always assumed ourselves to have invested less in them emotionally, or whether our own levels of vulnerability have precluded us from analysing the reality of how our friendships really function, its only since people have started identifying the phenomenon of “toxic friendships” and openly speaking about them, that the rest of us feel legitimate in acknowledging that to be involved with toxic people WHATEVER the relationship, is unacceptable.  It’s a great step forward and personally I give thanks to those pioneers in pain for their courage in speaking out and helping, though that process, to turn this taboo subject into a table topic.

We all know about the guys who beat their wives, and the women who psychologically torture their partners.  “Hen-pecked husbands” used to be a subject of ridicule, but not anymore.  We also know about people who beat or starve their own kids to death, workplace bullies, and the power-hungry’s victimization of the vulnerable.  But our friendships have traditionally been regarded as our “safe harbour”, a safety net, where the same sense of responsibility and serious work that keeps a relationship healthy doesn't apply. Traditionally, it has taken some form of monumental betrayal of one party to a friendship to convince the other that a parting of the ways is warranted.  But a far more insidious form of betrayal or disloyalty can infiltrate a friendship, take root, and cause untold damage to a person’s self esteem, prospects or opportunities and it happens and ends up being perpetuated because the person who experiences the misery simply (but wrongly) feels less justified or validated in terminating the friendship.

Well, newsflash, everyone: If you’re feeling unhappy, anxious or resentful about spending time with someone in your social circle, it doesn’t automatically mean you’re wrong, paranoid, irrational or deluded about the true status of the friendship, even if voicing your concerns prompts others to denigrate them as such.  You may be a little over-sensitive, but you’ll know that about yourself already, and if that’s all it is, it’s probably time for a conversation with the person concerned, to clear all that up.  But, in reality, if there are people in your friendship network who have a negative impact on your mood and/or view of your own life, it’s time to take a step back, reassess that relationship, consider the value of it to your life, and walk away if necessary.  

As true as all this is, it’s also important that we look at our own role in a toxic friendship.  If we’re in the habit of picking bad partners, it’s a pretty safe bet that we may also not make the best choices of who to have as friends.  Many of us have been involved with the bad boys in the hope that we could change them, and ended up heartbroken as a result.  Just as many of us have picked up the lame ducks in the hope that we could fix them, and ended up just as heartbroken as a result.   But here’s another newsflash: in real life, the frogs are simply frogs in our garden.  They don’t turn into princes, no matter how many times we kiss them. 

Consider too, the charismatic, successful, glittery person that everybody loves and wants to spend time with – we might want to be that person’s friend because we think that some of the success, glitter and popularity will rub off onto us and magically transform our own lives.  Since it’s the normal human condition to want what we don’t have, the target of our affection (even as a friend) very likely possesses qualities we wish we had ourselves.  We are naturally drawn to people we perceive as being in a position to fill our lack.  Newsflash Number Three: Such people are often simply a glittery wrecking ball to our self development and sense of self worth. All too often, those princes and princesses we gravitate towards because they have the qualities we wish we had ourselves are actually narcissistic prima donnas; wolves in sheep’s clothing, absorbing the adoration and indulging in the exploitation of others in whatever way works best for them in shoring up whatever they lack for themselves.

None of this is to imply, however, that a toxic friendship is always our own fault. Nobody goes into a friendship expecting or deserving to be treated badly, disrespected, made to feel inadequate or unworthy, or abused in any other way.  Making a mistake is one thing.  Failing to acknowledge it and remaining miserable is quite another, and that is something we DO have to take responsibility for. Its a common thing that people who don't "pull the pin" sometimes feel that they can't face doing it.  The thought of being without that person is simply too awful.  We maybe clinging to the hope that things will improve, the toxic friend will see the light, its "just a phase" that will pass.  There are endless justifications for remaining in these destructive friendships, but the reality is that over time they are incredibly dangerous to both our self esteem and our view of our place in the world.

We’ve all had at least one friend in our lives who has perpetually reminded us that they’re better, or better off, than us in some way.  We’ve listened to them banging on about how great they are and how wonderful their lives are compared with our own, or what’s preventing them from being happy despite their current blessings.  We’ve had friends that have “teased” us in a crowd, with an underlying lack of awareness of how hurtful that can be, or an actual streak of menace, with either disregard being a simple lack of respect for us as people.

                                        

We've also had the “poor me’s” whose lives are like an endless soap-opera of the worst kind of drama, chaos and negativity, who soak up our positive energy like sponges, leaving us dry and depleted.  There’s a great story about the tree and the vine, that I’ll share with you here.  Generally speaking there are two types of people – trees and vines.  Vines will find trees, wrap themselves around them and leach all the goodness out of them for their own survival.  Then, when a tree is dead, what happens to the vine?  Does it die?  Hell no!  It simply goes and finds another tree.  Even some of the most successful people are vines, when it comes to their friendships.  Their own needs and desires simply eclipse anyone else's - even the people they regard as friends.

These are all people who are obsessed with their own real or perceived status: be it success, attractiveness, wealth, power, as well as ill-health, ugly appearance, lack of social interaction, financial destitution, and various other areas of powerlessness or dysfunction.  These people are true toxins.  They don’t want to know about us - not really!  They just want us to empower them to stay where they are in life.  Our happiness is irrelevant to these people. In no way can we class them as friends!

If a friend is genuinely struggling with issues that are overwhelming them, being the best friend we can to them at that time is critically important to ourselves as well as to them.  Knowing the difference between a person who is genuinely in need of our support, and one who’s simply being manipulative and exploitative of us in their own self absorption is critical to yanking out a toxic weed from our lovely garden of friendships and keeping ourselves intact in the process.

When friendships matter to us we absolutely do invest in them: emotionally, financially, practically and with genuine desire to have and be a really good friend, and the thought of losing any friendship we've invested in can be incredibly sad.  But the question to ask is whether or not being in that relationship actually makes us happy.  We’ve all muttered to ourselves in the past “I’d rather be on my own than in a horrible relationship”, when a romantic one goes bad.  Newsflash Number Four: FRIENDSHIPS ARE NO DIFFERENT!

People who take away our joy or positive sense of self have nothing positive to offer our lives.  Friendships that don’t enrich us are not worth having.  Nobody has the right to make us feel less worthy, less capable, less optimistic – especially not someone who’s in our lives wearing the label “friend”. 

Dealing with toxic friendships can be tricky. If the problems have gone beyond being able to talk about what’s upsetting us, or the energy to do so is just no longer there, it’s ok to walk away.  I did that once with someone I went to university with who used me for a long time and gave me nothing in return for my time, money, energy or support.  I lent her some books that she knew were hard to replace, and I never got them back.  I just got fed up with her in the end, and stopped communicating.  She never chased me up, which proved how irrelevant I really was to her, once I’d fallen off her radar of resources.  Another "friend" did something really horrible to me, including attempting to play me off against one of the loveliest friends in my garden, at a time when I was dealing with a lot of scary stuff.  Instead of offering me support she tried to shaft me in her own self interest.  I tried to communicate with her privately about it and she responded in the most savage way imaginable.  I had truly loved her, so it was a heartbreaking thing to find out what she was really like. And that I guess is one of the biggest hazards.  Sometimes toxic “friends” won’t reveal their hand until ALL the chips are down.  We won’t see it coming, and that makes it all the more devastating when such parasites show their true colours.

Sadly, toxic friends (whether obvious or not) are a reality that most of us will have to deal with at some point in our lives.  There are a lot of damaged people out there who are actively seeking to have their needs met, and they won’t care who they choke, sacrifice or step on in the process of making that happen. But we all need our own blood for our own survival.  We can’t afford to be giving it to those who wouldn't do the same for us.

Friendship should be mutually enriching, encouraging, uplifting, positively challenging, affirming, kind, respectful and FUN. A person who brings none of those qualities to your garden of friendship has no place there.  It really IS better to be alone than to be in a bad relationship that chokes your chances of finding a good one.  Even if it hurts, pull the weeds out. Know that who you have in your gorgeous garden of colourful, fragrant friends are beautiful birds, butterflies and blooms who truly deserve to be there!