A water company sent more than 400 identical letters to a customer who questioned the impact of the blunder on the environment.
Ella Tweed, a 24-year-old from Warwickshire, said she saw hundreds of envelopes piled on her doormat when she returned home from work one day.
She found them bundled together with elastic bands and decided to spread them across the floor of her flat in Rugby.
After opening a few, she realised they were all offering her a new water meter.
“I didn’t have the patience to open the other 400-odd,” the body piercer said.
“God knows how many trees this took!”
The letters were from Severn Trent Water, who said contract partners Network Plus, a utility and infrastructure service provider, were responsible for them.
“It’s surprised me because they’re quite an environmentally friendly company,” Ms Tweed said.
Network Plus has since apologised to Ms Tweed for having received “so many letters”.
Dave Trotter, the company’s executive director, said: “We outsource our printing to a specialist company and it appears to be an administrative error with the IT systems. We’ve taken steps to fix the problem with our supplier of these services so that it doesn’t happen again.”
He added: “We’re particularly disappointed because we have been focussing recently on how the business can support carbon reduction and make a positive contribution to the local environment.
“We have introduced a significant commitment to planting a whole forest through a partnership with Severn Trent – we will make sure we make amends for this error.”
Additional reporting by SWNS
