Goodbye NRMA

The NRMA (a leading motoring organisation of Australia) provide a publication called Open Road.  Now, while it's good to have membership of NRMA for emergency fixes to my vehicle, its not so good to get this publication.

I've tried before without success to cancel this, but was emailing, and I didn't get a response.  Here's the correct method: call 13 11 22, select option to amend an existing membership etc, then ask not to recieve Open Road.  They'll switch this off for you, but warn that you may receive next copy due to printing lead times.

So this magazine has 76 pages (Sep/Oct 2010) printed double-sided and is published every two months, so I have reduced consumption by 228 pages (or nearly half a ream of paper), and six plastic bags.  That count doesn't include the additional brochure inserts (2 pages). That means my time is saved, and there is less clutter in the house.  It also means the energy used to print, distribute, collect recycling and recyle is also now not needed.  What a relief!

If you're wondering about whether or not to stick with this mag, here's a few stats.  This latest copy has a lot of advertising.  In fact, only 50% of the mag is articles - not very interesting articles in my view, but hey you might like them.   Approx figures below:

Approx. figures for content of Sep/Oct 2010 Open Road magazine

Interestingly, the direct advertising from this magazine, in 2009, provided NRMA with $5.9M of revenue, but their distrbution costs were $7.8M.

One of the 'travel' articles is about a cruise through the Northwest Passage - now possible due to diminished ice due to global warming  :0(

Hewlett Packard and the mysterious alignment sheets

I have a Hewlett Packard all-in-one printer. I wish I didn't. The print cartridges are expensive and every time I load a new cartridge the machine spits out an alignment sheet. I am then supposed to put the sheet on the scan bed, scan it, and this completes a magical alignment process which is supposed to make my print quality better. This also happens when I power up too. Page after page of wasted ink, wasted paper.

In my view this process makes no difference to the print quality, is irritating and time consuming, and is not helping me reduce my impact on resources.

I googled the problem and found a lot of others anguished about the same issue. I got onto the HP forum (you have to register to do this, another waste of time - I can't imagine why HP needs to know the identity of everyone raising questions about their products) and followed their advice...which is basically to keep aligning, try cleaning, maybe even try buying yet more cartridges to see if they work. But they didn't address the underlying problem - why can't I choose NOT to align.

I've raised that question.  Will wait to see what happens.

This raises a diffcult question for me - the kind of environmental paradox that has no clear answer.  Is it better for me to continue using this HP product while it  (deliberately? surely not) wastes cartridges, packing, paper ink and power, but I am not throwing away the product itself.  Or is it better for me to get rid of this product and find a greener alternative.  Hm, I think probably holding onto the printer has to be the best option...?

Certainly, if something untoward happened to the printer, like it died a natural death, or someone in a fit of rage put a hammer through it, I would not, under any circumstances, buy another HP printer.