The Government came under fire today after posting a massive order for 210 million envelopes and appeared to signal an official reluctance to stamp out traditional ‘snail’ mail for at least another three years.
Although Government Supplies Agency would not divulge the expected cost of the order — for commercial sensitivity reasons — the previous contract for envelopes cost taxpayers €1.3 million a year.
The envelopes are for the use of civil servants in each of the government departments, with the exception of the Department of Social and Family Affairs, which orders its own.
Ciaran Cuffe, Green Party TD, said although it was important not to lose touch with people who don't have email access, it was also vital the government leads the way in drastically cutting back on waste.
"It's an awful lot of paper whatever way you look at it," he said. Mr Cuffe, whose party colleagues are ministers in the coalition government, called on civil servants to follow the lead of some private companies that give people the option to correspond without paper.
"Some utilities are going in that direction. My mobile phone bill comes to me as a text message every month and there's no paper," he said.
"I think government departments should be doing that, and every utility, whether it be Bord Gais or the phone companies, and within the government departments any communication with the general public using paper should give a no-paper, low carbon option."
The supplier who signs, seals and delivers the government tender will have to provide standard coded envelopes, bespoke envelopes and from "time to time" around 3.5 million envelopes which are outside the usual specifications, according to the official notice.
While prospective suppliers are encouraged to offer envelopes with "enhanced environmental features" there is no clear requirement for the order to come from 100 per cent recycled materials.
The Office of Public Works, which looks after the government's stationery needs, said it had no formal policy on reducing, reusing and recycling envelopes.
There are "green team" committees in all the government departments that push an environmental approach but it is largely aspirational, according to an official spokesman.
"In respect of envelopes, we try to reuse internal circulation envelops, reuse envelopes that are sent in to the department and we'll use labels for addresses on envelopes so that they can be labelled over again for reuse," he said.
"But it wouldn't be a policy as such, its a practice agreed in-house and most government departments work that way."
Mr Cuffe said the Green Party was already offering people it corresponds with the option of ditching the post to use email exclusively for written correspondence.
"We are doing our best as an organisation to reduce the amount of paper we use and I think there's a lot government departments — and private companies out there too — who could follow us."