I've been trying to clear out some old paperwork at home. Anything vaguely important tends to get filed in a binder or chucked in the filing cabinet, but it builds up over time. A lot of stuff goes out of date, so I chucked old insurance documents, TV licences and more. It would be great if we could get by with less of it. I could scan some documents, but that will require working out a way to file it on the computer so that I can find stuff. It would be neat to set an expire date so that something could clear out the redundant items. Any Linux solutions?

I'm looking at ways I can cut down the paper I need to keep. I found out that I can get my next TV licence by email. I already get the itemised phone bill on-line and get a small discount in exchange. I bank on-line and have started just saving the statement pages instead of printing them. I rarely need the printouts anyway. Other suggestions are welcome, via comments would be good.

We just got a new Yellow Pages, so now I have to recycle the old one. Nationally these must represent a huge amount of waste. The thing is that I hardly ever use it. Most services can be found on-line these days. The domestic phone book is even less useful. Why do I need an address book full of strangers? I'm not in it and and neither are many of my friends. I'm not sure you can opt out of getting either book as they just get delivered to every house by default.

I've tried to opt out of some junk mail, but still get a fair bit. It wastes my time to sort it all for recycling. I tend to rip out the envelope windows as I assume they do not belong with the paper collection. I'm not sure that bit of plastic is really necessary. I only keeps the contents slightly cleaner, but why bother?

Don't get me started on the amount of paper wasted at work.